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Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

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Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#31

Post by J_Darnley »

xnxn wrote: post #30
J_Darnley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My computer or more accurately the operating system came with dozens of fonts, maybe hundreds. Why can't you use one of those?

Imagine how ridiculous the web would look today if content creators had to restrict the images they used to some common subset of those preinstalled on clients' operating systems. Would you condemn web typography to the use of "web safe fonts" forever?

Yes. I do indeed condemn creators to use a font which renders correctly and I also condemn them to use a size which is legible.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#32

Post by ars_technician »

pandringa wrote: post #15
untog wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, like everything, it's a trade off. In return you get a very robust platform and free fonts.

In return for what? Google's not profiting off of Google Fonts, because I'm sure that whatever data they get from it could be collected by their other services.

Logged visits to sites they would otherwise not get. Font request+referrer is useful information.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#34

Post by loceng »

jonknee wrote: post #8
eps wrote: post #2

Trillion visits logged. Just remember, kids, that it's the only reason Google Fonts exist.

Except the part where they allow you to download them and serve yourself (they're open source): https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#Download_Fonts > You can download the fonts to use them for your mockups, in your documents or to host them on your own server. Google Fonts exists because it's in Google's best interest if everything is online. Having freely available high-quality fonts is a [small] way to help move…

Didn't realize this - thanks. :)

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#35

Post by loceng »

makmanalp wrote: post #22

If you ever get lost in the tons of fonts offered, check out this curated list that I absolutely adore: http://hellohappy.org/beautiful-web-type/ https://github.com/ubuwaits/beautiful-web-type

There are more like these. If I can find find them in my bookmarks, I'll paste them here.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#36

Post by mehrdada »

jonknee wrote: post #8
eps wrote: post #2

Trillion visits logged. Just remember, kids, that it's the only reason Google Fonts exist.

Except the part where they allow you to download them and serve yourself (they're open source): https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#Download_Fonts > You can download the fonts to use them for your mockups, in your documents or to host them on your own server. Google Fonts exists because it's in Google's best interest if everything is online. Having freely available high-quality fonts is a [small] way to help move…

Also, without accessible web fonts, developers will have to use images containing rendered texts to get text pretty on their web pages, which is not so easy to index for a search engine.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#39

Post by bennyg »

putlake wrote: post #13
unknownian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it against the TOS to download the font and host it on your own server? It's very simple to do even though they don't give instructions.

I am in the middle of a redesign and the new design uses Droid Serif. I wanted to avoid an extra HTTP request and bundle the WOFF font file in the CSS (using data URIs). The other option was to host the font on my server to avoid the DNS lookup for yet another domain. (CSS is in the critical path for page loads). Both are easy to do but I abandoned both of those ideas after watching this interview http://www.youtube.…

My least favorite thing about Google Fonts is that they look different on different browsers for each platform too. On my latest site design I had to put them on my server because they actually looked the worst in Chrome.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#40

Post by gress »

jonknee wrote: post #8
eps wrote: post #2

Trillion visits logged. Just remember, kids, that it's the only reason Google Fonts exist.

Except the part where they allow you to download them and serve yourself (they're open source): https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq#Download_Fonts > You can download the fonts to use them for your mockups, in your documents or to host them on your own server. Google Fonts exists because it's in Google's best interest if everything is online. Having freely available high-quality fonts is a [small] way to help move…

Except for the fact that people don't download and serve them themselves.
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