This includes the IP Address, User-Agent, and Referer, among other headers.Įvery website that loads a typeface from Google Fonts, has given Google the potential to track the visitor. When fetching fonts from a third-party server such as Google Fonts, client information is leaked to the third party. I refreshed under the same conditions.ĭropping external fonts is pretty simple, but can improve load time, reduce bandwidth usage, and avoid font swapping, which all improve your Core Web Vitals and SEO. ![]() A demo of the MDN website using Nimbus Sans, based on Helvetica, instead of external fonts. I refreshed with the cache disabled on a high-spec laptop connected to Wi-Fi with no throttling. A demo of blocking and font swapping on the MDN website. Until the typeface has finished fetching, sites can choose to block rendering or swap, which neither is ideal.įont swapping is when the font changes shortly after visiting the site, leading to a flicker and an increase in Cumulative Layout Shift. Particularly on the web, you'd derive more value building a lightening fast user experience, than fetching a typeface the user didn't ask for. The impact of this can be significant on slower networks or old mobile devices. Typefaces can be upwards of 160 KB per font face. Whether we're talking about embedding fonts in offline documents, or fetching fonts on the web, it increases the overall size and load time of resources. Meanwhile, they may care for other things impacted by your font choices… Performance Unless you're looking to be creative, the average user doesn't know, and doesn't care, what typeface it has so long as it's legible. The user is there to consume content or get a task done. This is particularly relevant to corporate websites, blogs, forums, and web applications. There's no need to specifically fetch Roboto, Inter, or another font that's similar enough to the preinstalled options. Given the number of typefaces available on all operating systems, there are likely many suitable options for your use-case. In other words… only fetch an external font when it actually enhances the user experience! Why? But it's worth sticking to the wide array of typefaces already installed on the client's operating system. In short, you may just need an arbitrary typeface to show arbitrary text on your website. There are times we should fetch external fonts, but it shouldn't be the default attitude in everything that we build. Instead, I'd recommend you consider an expansive font selection, featuring typefaces available across operating systems. Just a reminder that fonts aren't free, and that it's a good idea to review if it's worth packaging or fetching external fonts when it's avoidable. This isn't suggesting to never use external fonts. While this may be tempting, it actually makes very little sense for most use-cases. On the modern web, we've normalized fetching fonts from client-side, or embedding fonts in resources that are served to users. ![]() The estimated network speeds and latency are taken from Throttling - Firefox Source Docs. As for the web, here are some popular fonts and their potential network impact: Font ![]() In documents and subtitles, embedding fonts can easily increase the file size tenfold. If you're fetching a font that is not already on your user's phone or computer, they will have to download it.
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