Comments on: Firefox 3.5 and the potential of Web typography

Firefox 3.5 introduces a new embeddable font feature that can make Web typography much more visually appealing. But type foundries have to play along.

[forever4now]

Cool!

Hopefully an IE-less Windows 7 in the EU will result in a huge uptick in non-IE browsers there. That would surely help to motivate web developers to start implementing new browser capabilities such as HTML5 video, @font-face, etc., in their website designs.

It would be nice, if Windows 7 was IE-free in the US, as well. Then, perhaps a similar effect would result.

[iertry]

Do you know how the EU version works? I you buy a boxed copy and install it how do the EU expect you to download and install another browser without a browser to access the internet and download it?

[forever4now]

@ iertry

95% of users will get Windows 7, when they purchase a new PC. The PC maker will pre-install the browser of their choice on these new systems.

The remaining 5% will be Windows 7 upgrades on existing machines. I don't know what the final EU resolution will be for this case, but you could argue that anyone capable of doing an OS upgrade is most likely technically savvy enough to figure out the browser part (e.g. downloading it to a disk, before upgrading, using ftp, etc.).

[iertry]

@forever4now

I guess that's the way it will work. It will be interesting to see what browsers the PC makers choose to install.

[Indyan]

If Opera doesn't manage to convince EU to include the ballot box dont expect things to change. Since 95% of users get their windows preinstalled (from OEM), they would already have IE installed.
Expect MS to throw in incentives to the computer manufacturers to include IE instead of other browsers. (Monopolies do that all the time, recently it was found that Intel offered incentives to retailers to not stock AMD components.)

[ecotopian--2008]

Why is everybody talking like only Firefox does this? I've got news for you. Safari 4 handles @font-face just fine.

[joyofsomeone]

"(Safari began supporting it in Version 3.1 and Opera in Version 10)"
I think you'll find that they're merely mentioning it because it's new in Firefox... The people who talk about this apparently know Safari handles it!

[FF2009]

That's because no one is using Safari :)

[marka999]

So does IE

[finalfanoffkey]

This will open the gate to a flood of lawsuits to any website that font-linking non-public domain fonts unless they are willing to pay a significant fee for it. I really doubt how many web site can afford doing so. This feature is really pratically useless comparing to the font embeding technology and won't get support from the font industry.

[tikoro]

While I agree with potential lawsuits, I really think you need to upgrade your game on freeware or open-source stuff in general. Check out www.1001freefonts.com... While sometimes the majority of the fonts on that particular site seem more apt to be used on a myspace-esque design schema (i.e. unreadable) or in fun graphics etc... they are free and as such could be used easily. For example instead of making a huge graphic to say the name of my site in a special font..I could merely use the @font-face declaration and voila...There are free resources out there if you feel like looking.

[pentest]

This is a security nightmare waiting to happen, especially if there is any flaw in the browsers that support this that have to do with fonts.

[daverosenberg]

Definitely a risk, but just as with CSS and Javascript files there will be some way to secure the fonts. Maybe a digital signature?

[galacticcruiser]

The other problem with this is that the font files are not small to download (A typography expert recently said at a conference that decent font files could be half a megabyte or more to download, IIRC). This will lead to ugly side effects of some standard fonts showing and then suddenly half way through reading seeing the fonts change... That might be a difficult user experience issue to overcome...

[marka999]

IE does support @font-face and has since IE5 so saying it doesn't work in IE is incorrect as IE was the first to implement it.

[d2r4]

Good job pointing that out marka999

Indeed... maybe Dave Rosenberg should read the articles that he links to.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/@font-face

Mozilla's site clearly states that there has been support for this feature since IE 4. The feature is more limited than newer implementations, but really... IE4! I'm glad all the non-IE browsers are so innovative, too bad M$ is so stupid. Really people.... whether or not IE sucks, people should at least post accurate (and complete) information.

[jean.luc.picard]

It absolutely does not work in IE of any version. I have been using free fonts on the web for a few months and the only browser where it does not work is IE. IE requires a proprietary file format that does not exist and the software from M$ to convert fonts is arcane and does not work as far as I can see. I've tried. Any WebKit based browsers supports it. But NOT IE.