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There really should be a set of a few hundred fonts standardized by the w3c or whatwg that should come with every browser (and OS) install. This would be like

by vFunct 2y ago

There really should be a set of a few hundred fonts standardized by the w3c or whatwg that should come with every browser (and OS) install. This would be like how early versions of PostScript came with about 30 standard fonts available to all PostScript printers.

fleabitdev 2y ago
It's a nice thought, but internationalisation would make that difficult. On my system, the Noto international font weighs about 170 MiB compressed (gzip-compressed TTF, sans and serif styles, all weights, including symbols and colour emoji). Even just focusing on Latin scripts, a few hundred fonts would roughly double the compressed download size for browsers and Electron apps. It might be possible to come up with a better compression scheme which exploits redundancy between different typefaces, but as far as I know, that tech doesn't exist yet.
- kibwen 2y ago
  Here in the grim darkness of the future, every install of a general-purpose OS better be shipping with at least one font (or collection of fonts that operate via glyph fallback) to cover every Unicode codepoint for every language that isn't extinct yet. (In other words, apps that expect to be used with any arbitrary language, including browsers, should not be forced to ship with a font just to ensure basic coverage). And then, once you have that system-provided codepoint coverage, you can make your font parametric in order to avoid needing to ship multiple copies of the font for different styles. It's not a perfect solution, but it's still pretty acceptable given the constraints.
  - fleabitdev 2y ago
    To provide fonts for N different scripts would multiply the file size by roughly N, and there are a lot of scripts in common use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_systems#/media/File:Writing_systems_worldwide.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_systems#/media... Variable fonts would help, but I don't think it would be enough, especially if the goal is to provide a wide selection of fonts.
mrweasel 2y ago
I lean in the opposite direction, just remove the ability to specify the font type on webpages and let the browser use whatever is the system defaults.
- Linkd 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mrweasel 2y ago
    What difference does it make what font a website uses? I get having a monotype, a serif and possibly a sans-serif, obviously setting the font size should be a thing, but the actual font? I just don't see what difference it makes if a website is in Helvetica, Times New Roman or Arial. If one font is easier for me to read than another I can chance it in my browser, which makes more sense than letting some web designer, who's more focused on brand identity, pick a font for me. There might be some cases where you really wish you could pick a specific font, but you can't really use it to convey meaning anyway, because that would not work for screen readers or people who chance the font on their system to help readability.
    - moralestapia 2y ago
      >Why are there many clothing brands instead of just one that makes the same thing all the time? >Why are people allowed to choose different things? Why don't they just let me choose what's good for everybody?
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    Why would a website need a different font from the system font? I can get that there's "better" fonts (or at least worse ones) with different kerning or whatever, but surely people want a good font for everything? So the system is the right place to fix it. Firefox lets you disable the ability for web pages to override the system font, and I did that a while back. Throw web fonts in the bad idea pile with blink and marquee.
KronisLV 2y ago
> There really should be a set of a few hundred fonts standardized by the w3c or whatwg that should come with every browser (and OS) install. It's surprising that this is never the actual discussion we have, but it's always a discussion of web safe fonts vs custom fonts. Then again, while browsers and OSes are already pretty big size wise, fonts wouldn't exactly make that better. On the other hand, they already include a whole bunch of fonts, so having some authority delegate what should be available everywhere wouldn't be inconceivable.
throw0101c 2y ago
> There really should be a set of a few hundred fonts standardized by the w3c or whatwg that should come with every browser (and OS) install. One attempt by Microsoft: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web

by vFunct 2y ago

fleabitdev 2y ago

It's a nice thought, but internationalisation would make that difficult. On my system, the Noto international font weighs about 170 MiB compressed (gzip-compressed TTF, sans and serif styles, all weights, including symbols and colour emoji). Even just focusing on Latin scripts, a few hundred fonts would roughly double the compressed download size for browsers and Electron apps. It might be possible to come up with a better compression scheme which exploits redundancy between different typefaces, but as far as I know, that tech doesn't exist yet.

kibwen 2y ago
Here in the grim darkness of the future, every install of a general-purpose OS better be shipping with at least one font (or collection of fonts that operate via glyph fallback) to cover every Unicode codepoint for every language that isn't extinct yet. (In other words, apps that expect to be used with any arbitrary language, including browsers, should not be forced to ship with a font just to ensure basic coverage). And then, once you have that system-provided codepoint coverage, you can make your font parametric in order to avoid needing to ship multiple copies of the font for different styles. It's not a perfect solution, but it's still pretty acceptable given the constraints.
- fleabitdev 2y ago
  To provide fonts for N different scripts would multiply the file size by roughly N, and there are a lot of scripts in common use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_systems#/media/File:Writing_systems_worldwide.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_systems#/media... Variable fonts would help, but I don't think it would be enough, especially if the goal is to provide a wide selection of fonts.

mrweasel 2y ago

I lean in the opposite direction, just remove the ability to specify the font type on webpages and let the browser use whatever is the system defaults.

Linkd 2y ago
[flagged]
- mrweasel 2y ago
  What difference does it make what font a website uses? I get having a monotype, a serif and possibly a sans-serif, obviously setting the font size should be a thing, but the actual font? I just don't see what difference it makes if a website is in Helvetica, Times New Roman or Arial. If one font is easier for me to read than another I can chance it in my browser, which makes more sense than letting some web designer, who's more focused on brand identity, pick a font for me. There might be some cases where you really wish you could pick a specific font, but you can't really use it to convey meaning anyway, because that would not work for screen readers or people who chance the font on their system to help readability.
  - moralestapia 2y ago
    >Why are there many clothing brands instead of just one that makes the same thing all the time? >Why are people allowed to choose different things? Why don't they just let me choose what's good for everybody?
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  Why would a website need a different font from the system font? I can get that there's "better" fonts (or at least worse ones) with different kerning or whatever, but surely people want a good font for everything? So the system is the right place to fix it. Firefox lets you disable the ability for web pages to override the system font, and I did that a while back. Throw web fonts in the bad idea pile with blink and marquee.

KronisLV 2y ago

> There really should be a set of a few hundred fonts standardized by the w3c or whatwg that should come with every browser (and OS) install. It's surprising that this is never the actual discussion we have, but it's always a discussion of web safe fonts vs custom fonts. Then again, while browsers and OSes are already pretty big size wise, fonts wouldn't exactly make that better. On the other hand, they already include a whole bunch of fonts, so having some authority delegate what should be available everywhere wouldn't be inconceivable.

throw0101c 2y ago

> There really should be a set of a few hundred fonts standardized by the w3c or whatwg that should come with every browser (and OS) install. One attempt by Microsoft: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web