5 ms·

If google embedded the top fonts in the browser this wouldn’t be an issue. I don’t understand why the font selection in browsers is so limited.

jsw 7y ago
That sweet, sweet traffic data.
trillic 7y ago
The top fonts aren't the issue for page loading, they'll be cached 99% of the time. It's more obscure fonts that actually hit the server causing the issue.
theandrewbailey 7y ago
Last I checked, browsers don't come with fonts. Browsers use the OS's fonts if a webpage doesn't have them. I'd rather browsers not maintain their own fonts.
StLCylone 7y ago
Loading fonts is tracking and data collection. It's what Google does. If they build the fonts into the browser, then tracking/data collections calls are not made.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  They could embed it in Chrome. If someone is using Chrome, google doesn't need any more points of data. They know everything you do.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    yeah but you can sort of opt out of tracking by chrome, so its best to have fallbacks to be able to track all the things!
thrower123 7y ago
So many things about the web would be better if browsers shipped basic functionality. I cringe when I think about how many petabytes of jQuery has been sent over the wire over the years.
- basilgohar 7y ago
  But they do. Javascript itself has evolved significantly over the past decade obsoleting many features that used to solely be provided by add-on frameworks. HTML5 as a living standard brings the majority of the needs that used to be served by plugins – interactivity, dynamic pages, two-way communications, multimedia. WebSockets provide for realtime communications with the browser, something again not possible without 3rd-party plugins. So, what you are saying is in fact happening. But that doesn't mean it's not an issue with sliding goalposts. It's just that it doesn't happen as quickly as we all may like it, but that's because "basic functionality" is a constantly moving target with different definitions depending on who asks.
- sp332 7y ago
  Decentraleyes is a browser extension that locally stores the most popular CDN-hosted JS libraries, including Angular, Backbone, and jQuery. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...
btown 7y ago
Practically there's no difference between a browser that lazily downloads builtin fonts, and a global URL for a font file across websites with an extremely long TTL. And you don't want the browsers to be even more bloated than they already are!
- hinkley 7y ago
  Then why are there 36 trillion requests?
  - r0bbbo 7y ago
    A lot of people using a lot of fonts from a lot of different browsers. I'm sure the caching techniques aren't perfect but they're probably quite good.
    - hinkley 7y ago
      It's been a while now, but at one point there were some numbers that came in that showed that a much higher fraction of user agents arrive at a web site with a completely empty cache [than you might expect]. Enough so that if you rely on caching for user experience, your average user is not going to have a good time.
- gioele 7y ago
  > font file across websites with an extremely long TTL. Caches are no longer shared across domains because doing so leads to privacy leaks: https://www.jefftk.com/p/shared-cache-is-going-away https://www.jefftk.com/p/shared-cache-is-going-away
  - sp332 7y ago
    -
    - anamexis 7y ago
      The parent comment's point is that this cache is partitioned by frame origin (which the link details).
basseq 7y ago
Font selection in browsers isn't limited. Browsers don't have embedded fonts—they rely on whatever fonts are installed in the operating system. The challenge is that to ensure consistency, you need to use the "lowest common denominator" of fonts that are installed by default across all operating systems. Which leaves you with (like) Arial, Times, Courier, Verdana, Georgia, Palatino, and (hahahaha) Comic Sans. The real answer here is why web designers use Google Fonts as opposed to embedding their own fonts. To which the answer is: it's so much easier. (Tech, licensing, formats, compatibility, etc.)
- penagwin 7y ago
  I think what they mean is why don't browsers just include the most popular fonts, so the underlying OS doesn't matter? Instead we're restricted to only a few fonts that actually have decent cross platform support.
  - tobr 7y ago
    The only way to do that would be to include particular typefaces as part of the CSS specification, rather than just the generic font-family keywords like “sans-serif” and “monospaced”. But who should pick them, which ones would they pick, and how would they be licensed? It’s kind of the same problem as saying that the browser should include common images. Which images? Why? How many?
    - est31 7y ago
      > It’s kind of the same problem as saying that the browser should include common images. Which images? Why? How many? Images follow a different usage distribution than fonts. I'd say that the top 100 fonts are enough to render most web content, for images I'd say this is obviously different, the top 100 images might appear often but not as often as the top 100 fonts. Google is already distributing the equivalent for text, in the form of the brotli corpus which ships in every Chrome installation.
  - basseq 7y ago
    > why don't browsers just include the most popular fonts, so the underlying OS doesn't matter? Well, pontificating here: 1. Because many applications don't ship with additional fonts, and it's an additional layer of complexity. Some do—Microsoft Word comes to mind, IIRC. 2. Because you're still left with the same problem: unless all browsers can agree on an additional set of standard fonts, you as a web developer will only want to use those installed by Chrome and Edge and Safari and Firefox. 3. Because licensing for desktop application may (?) be more of a pain than licensing for web usage. Which may not matter for Google Fonts, since they may be the license holder for all anyway. I don't know.

jsw 7y ago

That sweet, sweet traffic data.

trillic 7y ago

The top fonts aren't the issue for page loading, they'll be cached 99% of the time. It's more obscure fonts that actually hit the server causing the issue.

theandrewbailey 7y ago

Last I checked, browsers don't come with fonts. Browsers use the OS's fonts if a webpage doesn't have them. I'd rather browsers not maintain their own fonts.

StLCylone 7y ago

Loading fonts is tracking and data collection. It's what Google does. If they build the fonts into the browser, then tracking/data collections calls are not made.

jjeaff 7y ago
They could embed it in Chrome. If someone is using Chrome, google doesn't need any more points of data. They know everything you do.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  yeah but you can sort of opt out of tracking by chrome, so its best to have fallbacks to be able to track all the things!

thrower123 7y ago

So many things about the web would be better if browsers shipped basic functionality. I cringe when I think about how many petabytes of jQuery has been sent over the wire over the years.

basilgohar 7y ago
But they do. Javascript itself has evolved significantly over the past decade obsoleting many features that used to solely be provided by add-on frameworks. HTML5 as a living standard brings the majority of the needs that used to be served by plugins – interactivity, dynamic pages, two-way communications, multimedia. WebSockets provide for realtime communications with the browser, something again not possible without 3rd-party plugins. So, what you are saying is in fact happening. But that doesn't mean it's not an issue with sliding goalposts. It's just that it doesn't happen as quickly as we all may like it, but that's because "basic functionality" is a constantly moving target with different definitions depending on who asks.
sp332 7y ago
Decentraleyes is a browser extension that locally stores the most popular CDN-hosted JS libraries, including Angular, Backbone, and jQuery. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...

btown 7y ago

Practically there's no difference between a browser that lazily downloads builtin fonts, and a global URL for a font file across websites with an extremely long TTL. And you don't want the browsers to be even more bloated than they already are!

hinkley 7y ago
Then why are there 36 trillion requests?
- r0bbbo 7y ago
  A lot of people using a lot of fonts from a lot of different browsers. I'm sure the caching techniques aren't perfect but they're probably quite good.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    It's been a while now, but at one point there were some numbers that came in that showed that a much higher fraction of user agents arrive at a web site with a completely empty cache [than you might expect]. Enough so that if you rely on caching for user experience, your average user is not going to have a good time.
gioele 7y ago
> font file across websites with an extremely long TTL. Caches are no longer shared across domains because doing so leads to privacy leaks: https://www.jefftk.com/p/shared-cache-is-going-away https://www.jefftk.com/p/shared-cache-is-going-away
- sp332 7y ago
  -
  - anamexis 7y ago
    The parent comment's point is that this cache is partitioned by frame origin (which the link details).

basseq 7y ago

Font selection in browsers isn't limited. Browsers don't have embedded fonts—they rely on whatever fonts are installed in the operating system. The challenge is that to ensure consistency, you need to use the "lowest common denominator" of fonts that are installed by default across all operating systems. Which leaves you with (like) Arial, Times, Courier, Verdana, Georgia, Palatino, and (hahahaha) Comic Sans. The real answer here is why web designers use Google Fonts as opposed to embedding their own fonts. To which the answer is: it's so much easier. (Tech, licensing, formats, compatibility, etc.)

penagwin 7y ago
I think what they mean is why don't browsers just include the most popular fonts, so the underlying OS doesn't matter? Instead we're restricted to only a few fonts that actually have decent cross platform support.
- tobr 7y ago
  The only way to do that would be to include particular typefaces as part of the CSS specification, rather than just the generic font-family keywords like “sans-serif” and “monospaced”. But who should pick them, which ones would they pick, and how would they be licensed? It’s kind of the same problem as saying that the browser should include common images. Which images? Why? How many?
  - est31 7y ago
    > It’s kind of the same problem as saying that the browser should include common images. Which images? Why? How many? Images follow a different usage distribution than fonts. I'd say that the top 100 fonts are enough to render most web content, for images I'd say this is obviously different, the top 100 images might appear often but not as often as the top 100 fonts. Google is already distributing the equivalent for text, in the form of the brotli corpus which ships in every Chrome installation.
- basseq 7y ago
  > why don't browsers just include the most popular fonts, so the underlying OS doesn't matter? Well, pontificating here: 1. Because many applications don't ship with additional fonts, and it's an additional layer of complexity. Some do—Microsoft Word comes to mind, IIRC. 2. Because you're still left with the same problem: unless all browsers can agree on an additional set of standard fonts, you as a web developer will only want to use those installed by Chrome and Edge and Safari and Firefox. 3. Because licensing for desktop application may (?) be more of a pain than licensing for web usage. Which may not matter for Google Fonts, since they may be the license holder for all anyway. I don't know.