Webfont
Also called: web font
The term webfonts refers to the use of fonts within Web sites. The term can refer both to the technology that makes this possible and to fonts that can be applied to the Web thanks to this technology.
Web fonts have greatly enhanced the typographic capabilities of the Web: source files of fonts used in Web pages do not necessarily have to be installed on the visitor's computer. If the visitor "doesn't have" a font, the necessary file can be downloaded from the server.
How the advent of web fonts changed the web
Ever since 1995, it has been possible to specify in HTML code (and later in CSS) the font in which texts should be displayed in the browser. Initially, the possible choices were limited to fonts installed on visitors' systems. This is because choosing a font that is not available to the visitor has no effect in the browser.
Safe options that were usable by the majority of Internet users were also referred to as "Web safe fonts" or "core fonts for the Web. Optionally, multiple fonts could be specified in font tags and stylesheets to set similar fallback options.
A collection of externally similar fonts is also called a font stack. As an ultimate fallback to this, one more of the generic font families can be specified, such as serif, sans-serif and monospace, which cause the browser to fall back to the default font for this family.
Because the choice of fonts was limited to popular fonts such as Arial/Helvetica, Times New Roman and Verdana/Geneva, many Web texts looked the same.
Over the years, various techniques have come along to allow additional fonts to be used in Web texts by being downloaded by the visitor if necessary. The "definitive" solution for embedding fonts, the @font-face functionality, originated in CSS2 and has been the standard for Web fonts since CSS3 was adopted by the W3C.
The ability to have fonts used within Web pages downloaded from the Internet has dramatically changed the look of the Web. Indeed, in theory, this allows text to be displayed in any font you wish.
Web fonts and licensing
The use of Web fonts is not uncontroversial. A major objection is that fonts are copyrighted and most creators and rights holders require a license to use and distribute their fonts. It is no exception that hefty sums are used for licenses.
It's not just the use of a font in a Web site that can violate its creator's rights. The openness of the Web means that fonts included as Web fonts are available for anyone to download and can easily be used for other purposes as well. By using a protected font as a Web font, a Web site can contribute to the illegal distribution of the font and its unauthorized use by others.
Fortunately, there are also a lot of fonts that are free to use on the Web. The fact that the majority of Internet sites today use Web fonts is due in part to Google. In 2010, that company launched the Google Fonts service, a library of hundreds of free-to-use(open source) fonts. In addition to providing a platform to find and download royalty-free fonts, Google Fonts can also be used to host fonts.
File size of web fonts
Another possible objection to Web fonts is the size of font files. This can reach several MBs in the most extreme cases. This can cause problems especially on slow Internet connections and connections with a data limit or usage cost per MB.
If large files need to be downloaded when requesting pages, this means, especially with slow connections, that loading times can increase significantly. Visitors may also face additional costs for the generated data traffic. These are disadvantages with limited added value for the visitor.
A large and growing group of Internet users that this may affect is mobile traffic. When applying Web fonts, it is good to take these users into account. This means weighing whether it is necessary and appropriate to include large font files when loading the site. Longer Web page load times are also unfavorable for search engine optimization.
The overall size of fonts used can be reduced by not including too many different fonts and font styles, or by showing mobile visitors a version of the website with no or fewer web fonts. Fonts can also be chosen that are "web safe" on most mobile devices.
