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Self-host your fonts for better performance

wicki.io

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Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#331

Post by greggturkington »

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…

That's a MAJOR hit to design and branding for a very small hit in page weight. Properly configured webfonts add almost nothing at all. There may be more business value in the 500ms you save vs branding (absolutely possible) but it's a tradeoff.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#333

Post by hobs »

_a1_ wrote: post #32
robin_reala wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do the same for noscript - it doesnt take much - just whitelist the site I am on if it doesnt work the way I want, and if I am worried about a payment on some site I can temporarily allow everything on that tab.

That plus adblock makes the web almost... enjoyable.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#334

Post by greggturkington »

getpost wrote: post #292
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've been experimenting with having custom fonts disabled (that is, fonts I don't have locally How do you do this exactly?

An easy way is enabling "Block remote fonts" in uBlock Origin's settings

You could add a filter like `*$font,third-party` or similar as well

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#335

Post by amyjess »

colonwqbang wrote: post #131
rangibaby wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re underestimating how much work and skill it takes to make a good font, even for a great designer, so type foundries like to lock good fonts up behind rent-seeking license agreements.

Selling fonts is not rent-seeking. Rent-seeking would be if Google demanded money from a font designer to let their fonts be "compatible" with Chrome. I.e. Pay me or I'll make sure your product doesn't work with my product. App stores is a common example; pay Apple or they'll make sure your software doesn't run on the iPhone.

Some features of the license agreement are though.

For example, some foundries require you buy a special expensive license in order to use their fonts in a PDF. IIRC, Hoefler & Co. and Emigre do this (though it's been years since I've looked, so I may have changed this). Their rationale is that since it's possible to extract font from a PDF, they need to pay for any font piracy that results from that.

(never mind that anyone who wants to pirate the font would just go and find a torrent instead of ripping it out of a PDF... and there are torrents of every notable foundry's entire libraries)

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#336

Post by bee_rider »

gumby wrote: post #318
AstroJetson wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is one of the many reasons I've stopped the almost hourly updates of Chrome. I feel fo people that have bad bandwidth or poor wireless connections. One of my favorite rants if web builders and more importantly the managers of team that build websites were forced to use a DSL speed level connection daily a lot of the cruft would go away.

The same argument applies to developers not using the state of the art computers packed with RAM. These problems can't be found in QA: if they even show up at all it's too late. Sure, their code will compile faster but they won't get a feel for how it behaves in the real world. Probably the best is to have fast build servers on the LAN while typing at pedestrian machines.

Whatever excuses we want to make for forcing web devs to use old netbooks from 2004, I'm down with it (everyone knows they think they're cooler than us, we need to knock them down a notch). Usability? Cool yes that sounds very important or whatever.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#337

Post by smichel17 »

Karunamon wrote: post #321
mook wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you _can_ configure uBO to block third-party content by default (by turning on advanced user mode); however, it's not as good as uMatrix as there is no split of request type (script versus image, etc.) as well as no UI to manage subdomains. You'll have to do that last part by editing the text configuration manually.

I think that's a feature now, at least in what's shipping in Chrome. You can click "custom" on any website and select the resources that site is allowed to load, by type. UI screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/o0UsSdP.png

That's noscript, not uBlock Origin, and yes, uMatrix is basically that but more convenient.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#338

Post by coliveira »

geofft wrote: post #324
coliveira wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is exactly the nature of the problem: a company that has basically the power of big government dictating what people will do without their previous approval. The very existence of such a company is anti-democratic. Now we are stuck with a single company dominating a public service (internet) that affects the lives of billions of people around the world and we don't have a say on how they manage this network.

No, the nature of the problem is that Google (and big government, in its own ways) is trying to solve hard problems with no good solution . There are clear downsides (described in this thread) to all the possible options, and even the option of letting people choose between bad options doesn't actually make people's lives better at the end of the day. Keep in mind that Chrome basically pioneered the concept of doing…

The secret of democracy is that, even when there are no good options to choose from, people agreed on the solution. Therefore you are not a the whim of a single person or entity and this legitimates the way you live.

As for technology existing only because of Google or some other large company, that's not the case. Google was more innovative when it was smaller. Netscape created the whole browser industry as a small startup. Just let a lot of small to medium size companies compete in the market and split the ones that become so big as to become a threat to the whole ecosystem.

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#339

Post by techlaw »

majodev wrote: post #258
hotgeart wrote: post #79

This site will make your live easier to dl and host the font yourself: https://google-webfonts-helper.herokuapp.com/fonts

Highly appreciated hint (original author). Note that I haven't updated this project in ~4 years and it's still spinning on Heroku's free tier, haven't spend a penny for the API hosting costs. Some recommendations regarding the CSS may be outdated by current "webfont hosting standards". Let's see what 2021 will bring for this project...

Logged in just to thank you for this excellent resource! We use it for all new websites and are gradually going back and retrofitting older sites using your project.

Wish it was this painless to migrate from other Google offerings!

https://google-webfonts-helper.herokuapp.com/fonts

Re: Self-host your fonts for better performance

#340

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #312
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying this every few years since browsers started supporting JavaScript and allowing users to disable it (back in the days before extensions and config options), and every time more and more of the web breaks w/o JSscript. 100% of the websites I need for work use JScript.

Most sites are still usable if you cherry pick a subset of the JS they invoke. Blocked trackers like Google analytics or tag manager rarely break things.

Except for sites that I use (internal websites for several vendors), and that is just to manipulate widgets, editors, and forms, and in one case, operate remote machinery. What methods for cherry picking do you like? I've only done all or nothing.
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