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Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

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Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#51

Post by DannyBee »

RexRollman wrote: post #16
afsina wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are claiming that reason of very existence of Google Fonts is to collect not-so-useful-and-easily-could-be-collected-by-other-services-of-Google data? Can we stop the whole Google bashing it is getting ridiculous.

They are an advertising company, which pretty much makes them data collection company. Its completely fair to question their motivations.

The motivations, as far as i know, are written on the about page:

"A web with web fonts is more beautiful, readable, accessible and open. " Google Fonts makes it quick and easy for everyone to use web fonts, including professional designers and developers. We believe that everyone should be able to bring quality typography to their web pages and applications."

If you have some actual evidence that the last part isn't true, and that it's really some big scheme to "log visits", what is it, exactly?

FWIW - my dealings with the team, which mostly involve reviewing occasional open source font contracts, makes me believe they really are just crazy about making web typography good. But i'm really interested in whatever sinister theories people have.

I mean, you know what they say about people who like "Signika Negative".

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#52

Post by PavlovsCat »

J_Darnley wrote: post #24
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.

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

Isn't it the job of the user agent to have options to override the choices of a website? Otherwise, the subset of "fonts everybody is sure to have" is just too small.

Why not let everybody have websites look how they want them to look? I'm kinda sad this vision gets so little attention, that instead we all try to push our vision on our visitors. Even if the web turns app platform.. just like we have configurable desktop managers, browser could still let everybody customize how websites look - if only websites could stop with the "story telling" and "experiences", and concentrated on utility and information. We're too addicted too shiny for our own good already.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#53

Post by eps »

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 the part where they allow you to download them and serve yourself.

Yeah, you try that. It's a single format that you need to convert yourself to produce woffs, eots and other variations needed for the actual self-hosted deployment, and no matter how you convert, they will never come out looking the same as Google's native versions. This "go ahead, host it yourself" is disingenious and manipulative at best.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#54

Post by notJim »

eps wrote: post #53
jonknee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the part where they allow you to download them and serve yourself. Yeah, you try that. It's a single format that you need to convert yourself to produce woffs, eots and other variations needed for the actual self-hosted deployment, and no matter how you convert, they will never come out looking the same as Google's native versions. This "go ahead, host it yourself" is disingenious and manipulative at best.

Here you go: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator. Upload a font and get back a kit with everything you need.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#55

Post by eps »

notJim wrote: post #54
eps wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except the part where they allow you to download them and serve yourself. Yeah, you try that. It's a single format that you need to convert yourself to produce woffs, eots and other variations needed for the actual self-hosted deployment, and no matter how you convert, they will never come out looking the same as Google's native versions. This "go ahead, host it yourself" is disingenious and manipulative at best.

Here you go: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator . Upload a font and get back a kit with everything you need.

Yeah, try it with Droid Sans, compare the results, report back.

@font-face generators are dime a dozen. The issue is that they generate kits of subpar quality for Google fonts.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#56

Post by eps »

DannyBee wrote: post #51
RexRollman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are an advertising company, which pretty much makes them data collection company. Its completely fair to question their motivations.

The motivations, as far as i know, are written on the about page: "A web with web fonts is more beautiful, readable, accessible and open. " Google Fonts makes it quick and easy for everyone to use web fonts, including professional designers and developers. We believe that everyone should be able to bring quality typography to their web pages and applications." If you have some actual evidence that the last part isn't…

Your naivety is adoring.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#57

Post by mda »

eps wrote: post #56
DannyBee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The motivations, as far as i know, are written on the about page: "A web with web fonts is more beautiful, readable, accessible and open. " Google Fonts makes it quick and easy for everyone to use web fonts, including professional designers and developers. We believe that everyone should be able to bring quality typography to their web pages and applications." If you have some actual evidence that the last part isn't…

Your naivety is adoring.

Your hat is shiny.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#58

Post by visarga »

npunt wrote: post #47

I'm surprised nobody's pointed this out yet -- Windows Chrome, the #1 Google Fonts browser, pretty much sucks at rendering Google Fonts. Which means you probably don't want to use Google Fonts yet. An outstanding issue [1] for the past few years has been that it can't antialias fonts correctly. The results are sometimes just so-so, and sometimes horrible, depending on what version of Windows you're running and what s…

> When a company espouses a newfound interest in design, but lets a major design issue on the largest platform for their products just sit there (visibly) unaddressed, you get a sense they don't have the right people in the right places to get stuff done yet.

Same for Google Maps. I live in Romania and we have had high-rez satellite and maps of our country, including street view, but for 7+ years we haven't had GPS locations of individual house numbers.

Android being the most popular phone and Google Maps the most popular GPS/maps app in Romania, not to be able to locate a house on a long street makes it almost useless. GMaps simply points to the middle point of the street - if it is miles long, then you might be a long way from your actual destination.

Why can't a multi-billion dollar company get their act together and finish their work? Even small GPS companies sell products that can look up houses on the street, but not Google. Could it be that it is too expensive even for them, or that Romania is worthless for them to spend time to finish the job?

I raised the issue on reddit, send feedback directly to them and at one time I even met a Google Maps employee and described our frustration with the Romanian Maps to him directly, but nothing gets done. It's like we fell off the Google Map™ into "forgotten land". And it's not a minor issue, it's like the most central thing a GPS does.

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#59

Post by [deleted] »

npunt wrote: post #47

I'm surprised nobody's pointed this out yet -- Windows Chrome, the #1 Google Fonts browser, pretty much sucks at rendering Google Fonts. Which means you probably don't want to use Google Fonts yet. An outstanding issue [1] for the past few years has been that it can't antialias fonts correctly. The results are sometimes just so-so, and sometimes horrible, depending on what version of Windows you're running and what s…

[deleted]

Re: Google Fonts: more than a trillion served

#60

Post by Silhouette »

npunt wrote: post #47

I'm surprised nobody's pointed this out yet -- Windows Chrome, the #1 Google Fonts browser, pretty much sucks at rendering Google Fonts. Which means you probably don't want to use Google Fonts yet. An outstanding issue [1] for the past few years has been that it can't antialias fonts correctly. The results are sometimes just so-so, and sometimes horrible, depending on what version of Windows you're running and what s…

I went back to Helvetica/Arial and every day this issue persists a little part of the designer in me dies.

On a similar note, caution is needed when using Helvetica in a web font stack. On Windows PCs, this could easily select a low quality screen font that was installed with a printer driver in preference to Arial. Designers who work on Apple gear, where specifying Helvetica tends to find a standard system font that renders reasonably well, sometimes don't realize this.

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