5 ms·

I just turn off downloadable fonts, too risky these days.

fddrdplktrew 3y ago
it's also pretty useless... I like my local fonts. I see it more as a tracking tool from spying companies like Google.
troupo 3y ago
System fonts don't have to be ugly: https://iainbean.com/posts/2021/system-fonts-dont-have-to-be-ugly/ https://iainbean.com/posts/2021/system-fonts-dont-have-to-be...
- atoav 3y ago
  No, but for designers designing with an unknown/potentially changing font is more work and produces less good looking results. So unless there is a set of reliable cross-platform system fonts there is zero incentive for designers to use system fonts for commercial projects. If you have ever worked in design the absolute horror is if you designed something well and then the boss of the org tou did it for opens it on their IE6 and it looks like shit. This is a similar problem.
  - codingdave 3y ago
    Is it truly designed well if you didn't find out the target audience and the tools they would be using to view that design? I love good design. I really do. And it truly is a critical piece of good software. Yet the most painful experiences I've had in my careers are from working with designers who who push their idealized design philosophies onto a reality where they aren't the right answer. Designers need to be as focused as anyone else on understanding the customers and solving the customer's problems.
    - atoav 3y ago
      I agree with you. There is a lot of bad design and there are a lot of bad designers. Privately I tend to call design that doesn't conaider function styling and people who make these decisions are stylists. That being said designing for screens is already hard because the sizes and proportions of the screens and windows can vary wildly and even change during use. Adding potentially different fonts with wildly different widths and readability into the mix is certainly something that doesn't make things easier. Again, that doesn't mean using a system font is something I'd never do, it just means that whether that is a smart or a bad choice depends on all kind of factors.
      - troupo 3y ago
        > Privately I tend to call design that doesn't conaider function styling and people who make these decisions are stylists. Oh, this is a perfect characterization. I've been calling such people "dribbble-raised designers" :)
cantSpellSober 3y ago
This article doesn't describe any vulnerabilities in the browser, is that correct? Mostly processing XML, Python and C. The conclusion is > Implement sandboxing for anything that processes fonts I don't believe the author is referring "your web browser"
- kragen 3y ago
  commonly the web browser passes the font data it downloads to the operating system for rendering, and there have definitely been exploitable holes in downloadable font handling in the past, in large part because the font rendering engines were not written with malicious data in mind (because you were buying your fonts from bitstream or apple or mergenthaler or whatever)

it's also pretty useless... I like my local fonts. I see it more as a tracking tool from spying companies like Google.

System fonts don't have to be ugly: https://iainbean.com/posts/2021/system-fonts-dont-have-to-be-ugly/ https://iainbean.com/posts/2021/system-fonts-dont-have-to-be...

atoav 3y ago
No, but for designers designing with an unknown/potentially changing font is more work and produces less good looking results. So unless there is a set of reliable cross-platform system fonts there is zero incentive for designers to use system fonts for commercial projects. If you have ever worked in design the absolute horror is if you designed something well and then the boss of the org tou did it for opens it on their IE6 and it looks like shit. This is a similar problem.
- codingdave 3y ago
  Is it truly designed well if you didn't find out the target audience and the tools they would be using to view that design? I love good design. I really do. And it truly is a critical piece of good software. Yet the most painful experiences I've had in my careers are from working with designers who who push their idealized design philosophies onto a reality where they aren't the right answer. Designers need to be as focused as anyone else on understanding the customers and solving the customer's problems.
  - atoav 3y ago
    I agree with you. There is a lot of bad design and there are a lot of bad designers. Privately I tend to call design that doesn't conaider function styling and people who make these decisions are stylists. That being said designing for screens is already hard because the sizes and proportions of the screens and windows can vary wildly and even change during use. Adding potentially different fonts with wildly different widths and readability into the mix is certainly something that doesn't make things easier. Again, that doesn't mean using a system font is something I'd never do, it just means that whether that is a smart or a bad choice depends on all kind of factors.
    - troupo 3y ago
      > Privately I tend to call design that doesn't conaider function styling and people who make these decisions are stylists. Oh, this is a perfect characterization. I've been calling such people "dribbble-raised designers" :)

cantSpellSober 3y ago

This article doesn't describe any vulnerabilities in the browser, is that correct? Mostly processing XML, Python and C. The conclusion is > Implement sandboxing for anything that processes fonts I don't believe the author is referring "your web browser"

kragen 3y ago
commonly the web browser passes the font data it downloads to the operating system for rendering, and there have definitely been exploitable holes in downloadable font handling in the past, in large part because the font rendering engines were not written with malicious data in mind (because you were buying your fonts from bitstream or apple or mergenthaler or whatever)