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Self-host your fonts for better performance

wicki.io

31–40 of 417 posts

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#31
post #23

I've always wondered the legality of downloading web fonts from Google Fonts and self-hosting them. At first glance it probably doesn't sound like a problem, I get it's effectively the same as serving them from Google, but I know fonts can also sometimes have strange licensing requirements… so I always figured it was safer just to avoid it entirely.

Most (all?) fonts on Google Fonts are licensed to allow free usage except selling the fonts themselves. Also, you can just download the font directly by clicking the "Download family" button on the font page.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#32
post #5

I'm usually the first one to sneer in disbelief at super users who 'go nuclear' and disable the likes of javascript and images when browsing the web, but lately, I've been experimenting with having custom fonts disabled (that is, fonts I don't have locally), and it feels to me that page loads are much faster, and in some case more readable (pages feel 'cleaner'?). The only issues I've come across so far is when a sit…

If you want a really fast web experience, try disabling images and javascript too! (on rereading this I sounded sarcastic, but I really wasn’t trying to be)

I'm using uMatrix and by default all javascripts are blacklisted until I explicitly enable it for the site. The downside of this is that lots of websites are broken, payment sites are non-functional, but after a week of building the whitelist, the web is somehow usable again.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#33
post #5

I'm usually the first one to sneer in disbelief at super users who 'go nuclear' and disable the likes of javascript and images when browsing the web, but lately, I've been experimenting with having custom fonts disabled (that is, fonts I don't have locally), and it feels to me that page loads are much faster, and in some case more readable (pages feel 'cleaner'?). The only issues I've come across so far is when a sit…

If you want a really fast web experience, try disabling images and javascript too! (on rereading this I sounded sarcastic, but I really wasn’t trying to be)

uBlock Origin has a setting to prevent loading elements above certain size. I personally find it to be a nice middle ground.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-...

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#34

The reason why Google Fonts is so popular and provided through countless of CMS, plugins and hosted site builders is because it's super easy to embed.

... also they just curate their fonts well and you don't have to wade through piles of shit fonts and "your download will begin in 15 seconds" like other font sites.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#36
post #26
post #23

I've always wondered the legality of downloading web fonts from Google Fonts and self-hosting them. At first glance it probably doesn't sound like a problem, I get it's effectively the same as serving them from Google, but I know fonts can also sometimes have strange licensing requirements… so I always figured it was safer just to avoid it entirely.

I have yet to see anyone independently verify this, but to me it seems that Google fonts sends different versions of fonts, depending on the user agent. Downloading a font and using it on a different operating system from where the original download comes from seems to make the font look... unusual?

Google acknowledges this themselves, and it's mostly for compatibility reasons. Serving TTF to old browsers and WOFF for newer ones for example. Easy to verify yourself, make a request to the stylesheet from internet explorer and compare with the response you get if you make a request from a chromium-like browser, it'll serve you different contents.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#37
post #14
post #2

LocalCDN (Firefox Extension) solves the performance issue on the client side, i assume: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/localcdn-fork... https://codeberg.org/nobody/LocalCDN/src/branch/main/resourc... (and adds extra privacy as a bonus.)

There is this tried-and-true extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes... LocalCDN seems to be a fork of it, why should we be using it when it has so few users?

Does Decentraleyes cache fonts? Last I looked into it (b/c this extension makes using the web less broken from China) they didn't cache fonts:

https://github.com/Synzvato/decentraleyes/issues/34

However maybe the situation has changed since then..

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#38
post #23

I've always wondered the legality of downloading web fonts from Google Fonts and self-hosting them. At first glance it probably doesn't sound like a problem, I get it's effectively the same as serving them from Google, but I know fonts can also sometimes have strange licensing requirements… so I always figured it was safer just to avoid it entirely.

As stated in the article, Google's own devs have recommended downloading and self hosting Google Fonts in certain use cases. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv-l3-tJgGk&t=24m58s

But most of Google Fonts are either SIL Open Font or Apache Licensed

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#39
post #5

I'm usually the first one to sneer in disbelief at super users who 'go nuclear' and disable the likes of javascript and images when browsing the web, but lately, I've been experimenting with having custom fonts disabled (that is, fonts I don't have locally), and it feels to me that page loads are much faster, and in some case more readable (pages feel 'cleaner'?). The only issues I've come across so far is when a sit…

How does one do this for chrome/firefox? Google search gives result for the opposite problem.
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