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Redesigned Google Fonts website

material.io

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Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#71
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fyi: Under GDPR you have to host these fonts yourself.

is that true? Using a font is not trafficking any of the users Pii data? Google might be breaching gdpr if they are doing some crazy tracking, but I don’t see how a consumer of their fonts could be breaching. I am probably missing something.

[deleted]

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#72

Tip: more privacy friendly Google alternatives are available and super easy to use: https://fontsource.org/ I switched most of my sites to use it and I’ve been quite happy so far. It just works. No need to leak data to Google. For weirder stuff (e.g. https://tidings.potato.horse ) I use sites like dafont.com and convert fonts using Font Squirrel.

Why not just download the fonts and self-host? No leakage.

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#74
post #55
post #41

CDN+Web font-related PSAs: Users: it’s a good idea to block all third-party fonts so you’re not leaking data (filter rule: *$font,third-party). Unlike scripts/styles, fonts generally don’t hurt the UX (unless a developer is using icon font which haven’t been best practice in a decade--which is ironic considering this blog is broken). Developers: vendor these Google Fonts (most are licensed SIL) as other have noted in…

> unless a developer is using icon font which haven’t been best practice in a decade This is sadly quite common though, even and especially on hugely popular web sites.

I usually message support anyhow. Icon fonts helped webdevs support Internet Explorer with *.eot but after IE finally got SVG support, there was no reason to continue with icon fonts. The biggest general offenders are Font Awesome users (even when they offer SVG sprites) & Material Icons—with the latter being particularly broken with the icon name in plaintext (like this site) making it impossible to read versus just a broken Unicode tofu you’d expect. If the developer did the right thing & added title attributes, at least when you have a cursor you can see the name of the action.

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the selector for 'Latin' meant 'Families that include basic Latin glyph'. Which is pretty much all families.

Super unfortunate, I mean, I'm sure the font nerds are geeking out about the #2 listing Noto Sans Old Permic, an alphabet for a language which only about 500K people speak on planet earth (and probably much fewer type). And the #3 listing Noto Sans Sagdian, a language and alphabet that's been dead since the 11th century, but for the vast majority of us just looking for true Latin font faces, it's not helpful at all.

All those font families have regular Latin characters. It just default to show those languages. If you open the sidebar and type some text in the "Type something" box then it will show you those font families with the text you type.

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#76
It's just a shame they didn't test it on their own devices.

On a Pixel, the bottom navigation obscures the cookie and privacy banner (making that permanent) and trying to change the font language results in a fight for focus between Google Keyboard and the typeahead select, resulting in everything closing.

Hard to be enthusiastic.

Edit: Going landscape allowed me to dismiss the cookie banner.

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that true? Using a font is not trafficking any of the users Pii data? Google might be breaching gdpr if they are doing some crazy tracking, but I don’t see how a consumer of their fonts could be breaching. I am probably missing something.

Using a Google font causes the client to send a request to Google servers. The Google server then receives the client's IP address. Occasionally a judge will consider that a GDPR violation. [0] Sometimes using a CDN will also be considered a GDPR violation under the same logic. [1] But it seems like it just depends on which judge you get. There are thousands of sites in Europe that use Cloudflare, Google Fonts and Sh…

To expand on this. One difference between CDNs and Google Fonts is, that you normally sign a contract with your CDN under GDPR. I think the English term is data processing agreement. If the CDN is above board, and you have this contract, the situation is different.

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#78
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fyi: Under GDPR you have to host these fonts yourself.

For any who doubt you on this count: https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/1495 ...still apparently up in the air, more than five years after the GDPR went into effect.

I have found a clarifying comment, but while the comment [1] says:

> The Google Fonts Web API does not log or store IP addresses.

The linked source [2] only says that they don't use IPs to create profiles or to target ads. They very well might store them. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, they can change their mind at any time and suddenly one is in legal jeopardy.

[1] https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/5463#issuecomment-129... [2] https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq/privacy

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that true? Using a font is not trafficking any of the users Pii data? Google might be breaching gdpr if they are doing some crazy tracking, but I don’t see how a consumer of their fonts could be breaching. I am probably missing something.

Using a Google font causes the client to send a request to Google servers. The Google server then receives the client's IP address. Occasionally a judge will consider that a GDPR violation. [0] Sometimes using a CDN will also be considered a GDPR violation under the same logic. [1] But it seems like it just depends on which judge you get. There are thousands of sites in Europe that use Cloudflare, Google Fonts and Sh…

Important context:

- this is ridiculous. “Leaking an ip address on the internet!?” - so isps are screwed?

- it was a 100£ fine.

Re: Redesigned Google Fonts website

#80

Tip: more privacy friendly Google alternatives are available and super easy to use: https://fontsource.org/ I switched most of my sites to use it and I’ve been quite happy so far. It just works. No need to leak data to Google. For weirder stuff (e.g. https://tidings.potato.horse ) I use sites like dafont.com and convert fonts using Font Squirrel.

There's this phenomenal app for font conversion called Webfont Kit Generator. The feature I like the most is Subsetting, it greatly reduces the file size. You might find it useful. https://github.com/rafaelmardojai/webfont-kit-generator

> “…more privacy friendly Google alternatives are available and super easy to use […] No need to leak data to Google.”

For the unaware, what about Google Fonts is a privacy leak?

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