[xyzxyz998]

I'm glad we're talking about fonts because I have a question that I want to ask this audience-

How many of you insist on choosing your own fonts in your websites, rather than just specifying families? I can understand if the fonts you choose are fancy. But otherwise, as a power user who has set default fonts for various families carefuly, I dislike having to read stuff in any font except my own carefuly chosen ones.

I hope websites defered to users somehow on this.

[toxican]

I think things like Google Fonts have lead to an overuse of stylistic fonts and that should be addressed. But not for the reasons you're stating. 99.9% of all users don't care about setting their own fonts for websites or even know that that's possible. I'd rather let the company/website that paid for a designer to come up with a solid typography dictate how the site should look than trust my programmer's eye for design (which is to say I'm blind as a bat in that regard).

The real reason over use of fonts is dangerous is because it's a huge hit to site performance if not done properly. I've seen way too many sites that are yanking in Google Fonts all willy-nilly with zero regard for typography or performance. That's bad, but it's almost always the result of an inexperienced "nephew that knows HTML" or someone with access to a really shitty WordPress template.

And since the vast majority of people have zero interest in tweaking fonts themselves (myself included), why not use fonts other than the handful of (imo) boring system fonts?

[eropple]

> why not use fonts other than the handful of (imo) boring system fonts?

Ayup. I use Oxygen on pretty much everything because I really like how it looks and it's part of the distinctive style I impart to the stuff that I'm building. The number of users who have really strong opinions about fonts versus the number of users who either consciously or unconsciously appreciate a good-looking design is not a ratio in favor of caring about the former.

(Also agreed on performance; that's why I use one font family and use it from Google Fonts--because it caches.)

[whatismybrowser]

I'm obsessed with speed on my main site (whatismybrowser.com) so I simply use default system fonts, in order to minimise HTTP requests and download time.

It's quicker to just use system fonts than have to have the user make a trip to Google's Font Servers.

[sp332]

If you have such strong feelings about it, you can set your browser to only load fonts you like.

[jankotek]

Why do you allow websites to set their fonts? Dark Reader chrome extension

[xyzxyz998]

Nice trick, Fx has that built int too!