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Self-host your fonts for better performance

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Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#171

Post by [deleted] »

jakub_g wrote: post #162
zinekeller wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe if browsers standardized on shipping, say, 20 carefully chosen fonts (not necessarily the most popular ones, just a good variety of different types of fonts), the smaller websites would follow and use them; but I think any major brand likes to distinguish themselves and have a custom unique font. It may be not really carefully chosen, but didn't Microsoft have done this already? (Core fonts for the Web, https…

Yep Asian fonts in particular are _huge_. It's a complex topic.

[deleted]

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#172

Post by vbezhenar »

SquareWheel wrote: post #146
lukepothier wrote: post #133

Maybe I'm being naïve, but why don't browsers ship with more popular fonts bundled to avoid problems like these? I have no issue with any of my browsers taking up fractionally more space for an extensive cache of the most popular web fonts when the payoff is better performance on so many sites. Of course, servers should still be capable of serving the fonts that the client requires to render the content correctly, bu…

I've always thought the same. I see the same web fonts being used time and time again. It just makes sense for browsers to have an intelligent "permanent cache" - not based on your specific history but a common set of frequently sourced fonts, libraries, etc. This would be especially helpful now that shared caches are going away. One other option is to actually install the font into your OS. Any correctly-coded websi…

> Any correctly-coded website will try a local source first, which should help a lot for poor connections.

Then Google Fonts is not correctly coded, as it'll use remote font only. And myriads of websites reusing Google Fonts snippets. To try local source first, you have to explicitly ask for it in @font-face/src which Google Fonts does not do.

So installing font into your OS won't help you with any website using Google Fonts service.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#173

Post by vbezhenar »

Ensorceled wrote: post #163
lxgr wrote: post #159

That's a really sad side effect of cache partitioning. By the way, does anyone know if browsers are at least merging/deduplicating cached resources locally again (e.g. by storing cached objects by content hash)? The same could theoretically apply to computationally intensive tasks like WASM pre-compilation (although care should be taken to record the compilation time and delay loading appropriately for cached loads f…

It's actually a really sad primary effect of privacy abuses by large tech companies, let's place the blame where it needs to lie.

In the world without bad actors nobody would need passwords. Should we blame universe, bad actors or just accept that the world is hostile?

That said, some decisions should be left to user. I would choose proper caching over theoretical privacy improvement any day.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#174

Post by zinekeller »

vbezhenar wrote: post #172
SquareWheel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought the same. I see the same web fonts being used time and time again. It just makes sense for browsers to have an intelligent "permanent cache" - not based on your specific history but a common set of frequently sourced fonts, libraries, etc. This would be especially helpful now that shared caches are going away. One other option is to actually install the font into your OS. Any correctly-coded websi…

> Any correctly-coded website will try a local source first, which should help a lot for poor connections. Then Google Fonts is not correctly coded, as it'll use remote font only. And myriads of websites reusing Google Fonts snippets. To try local source first, you have to explicitly ask for it in @font-face/src which Google Fonts does not do. So installing font into your OS won't help you with any website using Goog…

> Then Google Fonts is not correctly coded, as it'll use remote font only.

For a good technical reason: the version installed on the computer may not really match whatever the version on Google Fonts serves (fonts have notoriously no semantic versioning aside from some programmer-oriented fonts, examples of these outside are Segoe UI (changed between Windows 7 and 8) and Liberation fonts (some versions notoriously lack some glyph symbols) and on Google Fonts platform the Exo and Exo 2 problem (which was resolved by renaming the second version to Exo 2)).

Of course, there are also some benefits to Google (you know what are those benefits are).

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#175

Post by da_big_ghey »

andybak wrote: post #124
jfk13 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's just a container for the exact same data that an OpenType font holds. On the other hand, it's possible that in the course of deployment, various things may be dropped from the original font resource: not just subsetting (reducing the repertoire of supported characters), but in some cases also OpenType features (e.g. ligatures or contextual forms), and in some cases hinting is stripped. If that is done, the…

What lunatic would strip hinting!? Is this really done?

Mea culpa, I've done this once before. I work on a small 4k screen so I couldn't tell the difference, though others pointed it out and I fixed it. I was trying to eke out that last bit of performance.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#176

Post by smichel17 »

dmm wrote: post #169
_a1_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

uMatrix hasn't been updated in a year and the repo has been archived: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532973 You'll probably have to let it go someday :(

I'm well aware. But that day will be when it stops working, and right now it still works fine.

(Actually, it will be some time after that, since the day it stops working I will spend some time investigating how much work it would be to un-break it myself. The web can pry uMatrix from my cold, dead fingers. And I suspect I am not alone in feeling that way.)

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#177

Post by nerdponx »

b112 wrote: post #132
dcgudeman wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Enslave users”, really?

Radicalization is the style of the time! Their side is heinous, evil, and kills babies. Our side is just, wondrous, and angel like. Thus, they enslave, we strive to break free, and bask in the pure bliss our utter and complete correctness enables.

Both sides, amirite?

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#178

Post by robscallsign »

test1235 wrote: 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…

I live in a rural area with bad internet, and the trend to load all of these external fonts, images and javascript externally over https basically makes the web unusable for us. The overhead of the handshakes required by the https connection greatly increased the page load time, and there is about a 1-in-4 chance of one of them timing out and not loading, so as a result the page doesn't load properly or pauses and stops loading.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#179

Post by BasDirks »

test1235 wrote: 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…

A well-designed web page does not rely on custom fonts, unless it is necessary to render a non-standard script.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#180

Post by alisonkisk »

corty wrote: post #92
bzb6 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cleaner look is because most designers use macOS which renders most fonts in a way that makes them all look good (let’s not get into technical details). On Windows the same fonts might look like shit (for example some parts of a character are thicker than the rest for no apparent reason)

Well, good is relative. MacOS renders fonts in a weight-and-form-correct way which makes them look blurry however. Windows renders fonts in a weight-and-form-incorrect way, which however makes them sharper and easier to read on screens, especially with resolutions below 200dpi. Now if you use a high-resolution monitor and print-optimized fonts, MacOS will look better. If you use a low-resolution monitor and screen-op…

> Problem is, most designers come from print and use

This can't still be true. No one comes from print anymore.

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