Alternatives to Google Fonts inside GFW?

[mungouk]

Any web developers here using (Latin) web fonts inside the Great Firewall?

 

If so, what's the current thinking on alternatives to Google Fonts, other than downloading them from Github and hosting them yourself?

 

All my Google searches so far are throwing up outdated solutions like using the now-defunct fonts.useso.com, or "hey, fonts.googleapis.com works again now".

 

Thanks!

 

[imron]

Why not host them yourself?

[mungouk]

I was under the impression that the Google API serves different CSS depending on which browser you're using, which would mean some back-end processing as well as just hosting the files...?

 

This is actually for student projects rather than production websites, but it would be helpful to know what developers in PRC would typically use.

 

Maybe we'll just target one browser to simplify matters.

 

 

 

[imron]

I'm not sure if it's used much in China, but I found this Chinese webfont provider.  Not sure if they have any free fonts.

[mungouk]

That's great @imron — many thanks!

 

[imron]

3 hours ago, imron said:

Not sure if they have any free fonts.

In answer to my own question, yes they do.  Check out all their 开源字体 (i.e. Open Source Fonts).

[Wei-Ming 魏明]

I made a list of free webfonts that I like. Here are the non-Google ones. I've included "@import" because I'm to lazy anc clumsy to use "@font-face."

 

@import url(https://sentyfont.com/index_htm_files/OzOceanBubble.ttf);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/12f525c880a52f5a3d85c27ac71266a5?family=HY+Cu+Zhuan+Traditional+Chinese);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/546ef565dfc336820ea5147450ef5197?family=HY+ShuTong+Traditional+Chinese);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/209cc623f7e199b28118233d2d3be7bb?family=STHeiti+TC+Light);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/9dadd41cd8d82c6dcfecd592cfbad4e8?family=Heiti+SC+Light);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/c81ad37f4fe5d970a2fbccf31ba5f6f6?family=Heiti+SC);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/91764cfbfb9049ea89665b0ac8f0ee41?family=Heiti+TC);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/209cc623f7e199b28118233d2d3be7bb?family=STHeiti+TC);
@import url(http://db.onlinewebfonts.com/c/0ba7db29f9f2b275516bb07240367237?family=STHeiti+T0C);
@import url(http://fonts.cdnfonts.com/css/venom-mincho);
@import url(http://fonts.cdnfonts.com/css/code2000);
@import url(http://fonts.cdnfonts.com/css/undotum);
@import url(http://fonts.cdnfonts.com/css/unbatang);
@import url(http://fonts.cdnfonts.com/css/kinryu);

[mungouk]

For what it's worth, in the end I told my students to use https://google-webfonts-helper.herokuapp.com/ to browse and find fonts they wanted to use, and then download them and host them as part of the website. 

 

This has the added benefit of them learning (usually the hard way) about using proper paths in their CSS. This site actually generates the @font-face declarations for you.