12 ms·

But if you’re already loading your entire site from your server, what difference does it make if the fonts come from there too?

maple3142 7y ago
Maybe the site owner has a CDN(CloudFront, CloudFlare, ...) in front of their whole website.
- gen3 7y ago
  Wouldn't that cache font files along with the rest of the website?
robjan 7y ago
[deleted]
- jeff18 7y ago
  Shared cache is going away: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21429621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21429621
marcan_42 7y ago
CJK fonts can be megabytes. The rest of an otherwise lean site can be a few hundred kilobytes or less. E.g. my site's About page is tiny, but pulls in a CJK font (with delayed load) for one line of text. It would make no sense to self-host that: https://marcan.st/about/ https://marcan.st/about/
- detaro 7y ago
  A self-hosted font containing just those few characters would be tiny, and nicer to your visitors than forcing a mostly useless megabyte download on them. Makes a lot of sense.
- dylan604 7y ago
  does it really make sense to load a large font for a single line of text on the page regardless if it is self-hosted or not? that must be one important line of text.
  - e12e 7y ago
    If you use a custom/download able font at all, it would make sense to use one copy (URL) - so every visitor only has to download it once - then use it from cache. This probably also the best reason to use a central CDN over your own - likely some other site already warmed up the client cache for you, with popular fonts (the ultimate in pre-warmed font cache, is of course the fonts the browser/os already have installed - unfortunately the lowest common denominator is a problem here, between Android, ios, os x, windows, Linux). I'm not sure if Google font service actually does facilitate cross-site caching though - there might be tailored URLs or account?
    - XelNika 7y ago
      The article already addresses that. Cross-site caching is blocked in Safari and will be blocked in Chrome in the future.
- tjoff 7y ago
  Jesus, why bother we a lean site with that mindset. If it truly is a must make it a small (self-hosted) png.
  - e12e 7y ago
    Eh, then it's no longer text? Fwiw I don't really think a one-time large font download is much of a problem - considering that improved typography is a very good way to improve how a site looks. And unlike your png - the text will display without the custom font. Fall-back fonts are only really a problem with icon font sets.
    - tjoff 7y ago
      It will read just fine. But no, I would not recommend it. But much rather that than a multi-megabyte one-liner. One time. Per site. On slow and/or expensive mobile connection? The png will also display without the custom font...
      - e12e 7y ago
        Png has poor screen reader support, though it can be amended via an alt tag, I suppose. [ed: but breaks copy and paste, which might be bad for an about page listing address and contact information - personally I'd much prefer fallback font to a png]. It's a shame there are no "bandwidth" queries in css, like there are @media queries - the client should be able to say - just content and essential downloads, please.
        tunetheweb 7y ago
        They’ve been proposed!: https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-5/#prefers-reduced-data https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-5/#prefers-reduced-dat... You can already do this with JavaScript now: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInformation https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInfo... though as you can see from the bottom of that link, Browser support is limited at the moment (and experimental so may even be removed/changed!).
- hsivonen 7y ago
  K does not belong together with C and J in this case. If you are subsetting fonts to include the actually-used glyphs, the font file size for a typical Korean-language site will be considerably smaller than for a typical Chinese-language or Japanese-language site. That is, the active set of glyphs for Korean is much smaller even if the fonts you’d start the subsetting process from were about as large. Self-hosting a Japanese font for one line of text is completely doable. I self-host all fonts for my site, which has a handful of CJK characters (across 4 fonts: Korean, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese).

maple3142 7y ago

Maybe the site owner has a CDN(CloudFront, CloudFlare, ...) in front of their whole website.

gen3 7y ago
Wouldn't that cache font files along with the rest of the website?

robjan 7y ago

[deleted]

jeff18 7y ago
Shared cache is going away: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21429621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21429621

marcan_42 7y ago

CJK fonts can be megabytes. The rest of an otherwise lean site can be a few hundred kilobytes or less. E.g. my site's About page is tiny, but pulls in a CJK font (with delayed load) for one line of text. It would make no sense to self-host that: https://marcan.st/about/ https://marcan.st/about/

detaro 7y ago
A self-hosted font containing just those few characters would be tiny, and nicer to your visitors than forcing a mostly useless megabyte download on them. Makes a lot of sense.
dylan604 7y ago
does it really make sense to load a large font for a single line of text on the page regardless if it is self-hosted or not? that must be one important line of text.
- e12e 7y ago
  If you use a custom/download able font at all, it would make sense to use one copy (URL) - so every visitor only has to download it once - then use it from cache. This probably also the best reason to use a central CDN over your own - likely some other site already warmed up the client cache for you, with popular fonts (the ultimate in pre-warmed font cache, is of course the fonts the browser/os already have installed - unfortunately the lowest common denominator is a problem here, between Android, ios, os x, windows, Linux). I'm not sure if Google font service actually does facilitate cross-site caching though - there might be tailored URLs or account?
  - XelNika 7y ago
    The article already addresses that. Cross-site caching is blocked in Safari and will be blocked in Chrome in the future.
tjoff 7y ago
Jesus, why bother we a lean site with that mindset. If it truly is a must make it a small (self-hosted) png.
- e12e 7y ago
  Eh, then it's no longer text? Fwiw I don't really think a one-time large font download is much of a problem - considering that improved typography is a very good way to improve how a site looks. And unlike your png - the text will display without the custom font. Fall-back fonts are only really a problem with icon font sets.
  - tjoff 7y ago
    It will read just fine. But no, I would not recommend it. But much rather that than a multi-megabyte one-liner. One time. Per site. On slow and/or expensive mobile connection? The png will also display without the custom font...
    - e12e 7y ago
      Png has poor screen reader support, though it can be amended via an alt tag, I suppose. [ed: but breaks copy and paste, which might be bad for an about page listing address and contact information - personally I'd much prefer fallback font to a png]. It's a shame there are no "bandwidth" queries in css, like there are @media queries - the client should be able to say - just content and essential downloads, please.
      - tunetheweb 7y ago
        They’ve been proposed!: https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-5/#prefers-reduced-data https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-5/#prefers-reduced-dat... You can already do this with JavaScript now: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInformation https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/NetworkInfo... though as you can see from the bottom of that link, Browser support is limited at the moment (and experimental so may even be removed/changed!).
hsivonen 7y ago
K does not belong together with C and J in this case. If you are subsetting fonts to include the actually-used glyphs, the font file size for a typical Korean-language site will be considerably smaller than for a typical Chinese-language or Japanese-language site. That is, the active set of glyphs for Korean is much smaller even if the fonts you’d start the subsetting process from were about as large. Self-hosting a Japanese font for one line of text is completely doable. I self-host all fonts for my site, which has a handful of CJK characters (across 4 fonts: Korean, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese).