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Comment by SEMW | Hacker News Reader

Looks great in Chrome, completely broken in Firefox: https://i.imgur.com/XRMgcHp.png.

I get the same in every browser I try on Linux.

I don't get the point of this. I really don't. While far from perfect, web fonts have largely been a solved problem for a while now, so why are Google reinventing this wheel? This seems to happen all the time with the web; people taking old ideas and reinventing them again and again, in yet more bloated ways, breaking things for millions.

</grumpy rant>

I don't think they're reinventing anything. Google Fonts has been offering webfonts for many years. All they did here was change the website.

They've changed their "typeface rendering engine" (for want a better description). Hence why many people are now unable to see their typefaces in full when once they could.

Not every browser on Ubuntu 16.04: Firefox displays those boxes but Vivaldi, Opera and Chromium work fine.

Google might have fixed some of the issues now - it was a day ago many of the bug were raised.

Just for reference, I was running ArchLinux with the Infinality font bungles.

It's fixed now. Thanks!

I didn't have the infinality fonts. I wonder what the bug was.

Oh, don't worry. Looks amazing in Chrome

http://i.imgur.com/FZtjj1U.png

I got that with IE and Opera also. /sigh, does not bode well for using those font's if the font site is broken.

Hey SEMW,

Sorry about that. The missing character detection can be a little finicky. Can I get a browser version / OS?

I have same issue in Chromium 51.0.2704.84, Arch Linux. I don't have google fonts installed, is that necessary?

No, it is not necessary.

We'll take a look.

We didn't have a chance to test specifically on Arch, but we think we got it. Let us know if it works out.

Firefox 47 Ubuntu also looks like that. Sad.

I have the same problem, submitted through the feedback thing so you should have a screenshot and all kinds of debug information from me.

Looks the same for me.

  * Firefox 47
  * Debian unstable
  * freetype 2.6.3
  * fontconfig 2.11

I have the same issue as SEMW on firefox 47 / archlinux

Equally broken for me on Firefox 46.0.1 on Kubuntu 16.04.

Heya. Other people have already replied with versions it fails on, but for completeness, I'm on Firefox 47.0 (package version: 47.0+build3-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) on Ubuntu 16.04.

Thanks. Looks like Linux needs some love. We'll be fixing this up asap.

FYI, same thing in firefox-47.0-4 in Fedora 23. Works fine in google-chrome-stable-51.0.2704.84-1.

Arch Linux user reporting in. Works fine in… uh… latest chromium (51.0.2704.84-1) and there are blocks in ff (47.0-1). Epiphany (3.20.2-1) horribly crashes, so bad even dev tools stop working.

I use infinality-bundle fontconfig preset.

Also broken in Firefox 46.0.1 on Fedora 23, running Gnome 3.18 on Xorg 1.18.3-2/Wayland 1.9.0.

I'm on Edge, scotth, can you unblock my browser?

Yep. We have it in the works. Some bugs came up before launch that we didn't have a chance to get to, but it's coming.

Firefox 46 on Ubuntu 16.04. Broken both with and without AdBlock (it's many time the source of pain points).

I'm seeing the same issue on Firefox 45.2.0esr on Debian.

Windows 10 latest, Edge latest

Blank white page on Firefox 47.0, OS X El Capitan, cookies disabled.

Debian testing,

Chromium 49.0.2623.87 built on Debian stretch/sid, running on Debian stretch/sid (64-bit)

Fails on Xubuntu 16.04/FF47 as well.

They probably did:

    font-family: Something

Instead of:

    font-family: 'Something'

FF has given me this issue for years.

No, for their "Jaldi" font they simply use:

    font-family: "Jaldi script=latin rev=2"

However, they are replacing what they think is a missing glyph with an image. For example, if I type the letter "r" while keeping the DOM inspector open, I see the text node containing the letter for a moment before it is replaced with an image element:

    <img class="content-editable-missing" data-missing-character="r" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==">

This is most likely a javascript bug doing a false negative failed progressive enhancement.

No one tests on firefox anymore, is sad how firefox is being ignored more and more everyday.

This is a Google-specific problem. YouTube Gaming launched only working on Chrome as well. One of Google's web UI frameworks wrapped text by breaking words of any size mid-letter, if you weren't on Chrome for a while. (It would cut "the" if it felt like it during a word wrap.)

My browser, Edge, is simply blocked on Google Fonts.

It seems like Google is more and more dependent on automated testing for all if it's deployments, perhaps since everyone internally uses Chrome, nobody notices when those tests are lacking on other browsers. Google would do well to reintroduce "humans" into their development process, and maybe open their new websites once in each major browser before they push a release.

It's been said that Chrome is the new IE. It sounds like hyperbole until you get bit by it.

This makes sense, because it has also been said that Google is the new Microsoft.

From my experience with front-end dev's it's not that they don't test in Firefox but rather they only test in Chrome. I've worked with FE devs who insisted it was unreasonable to expect them to test in all the major browsers.

Web devs as a group seem to be ridiculous. Note this doesn't mean everyone just a greater incidence of such.

In my department every developer uses a different browser as their primary browser. I only use Firefox, another only uses Chrome and another only uses Safari.

That's a very smart way to enforce ad-hoc testing in every browser. Probably prevents a lot of "works on my machine" issues.

I've worked for companies with no defined browser support, and other clients which required us to test in IE6-9, FF, Chrome, Safari, Mac FF, Mac Chrome, Mac Safari. It took FOREVER, so we ended up automating a lot of it.

This issue should now be resolved. Thanks for the report.

Don't hesitate to add issues to https://www.github.com/google/fonts/issues if you see any other strangeness.

I see the same thing in Chrome 51.0.2704.84 m, Windows 10.

I noticed my font rendering in Chrome started to be terrible a couple of days ago, so might be on me.

Hmm, Windows update + restart seems to have fixed the font rendering in general, but this page still looks the same.

Amazingly, Firefox on Android is fine.

Pfiou I thought I had some issues with fonts again when I opened it on Firefox

Getting nothing but a blank page in Firefox.

On the console there's this:

21:07:34.420 Error: The operation is insecure. Fc@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/app_js.js:78:634 l/<.instantiate@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:36:424 Zb/v.$provide.service</<@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:37:182 l/<.invoke@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:36:321 e/<@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:33:486 l/<.invoke@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:36:321 Zb/cb<@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:38:93 d@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:35:294 e@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:36:1 l/<.invoke@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:36:111 bf/this.$get</</<@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:84:434 t@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:59:434 h@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:53:339 H/<@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:52:482 jc/c/</<@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:16:99 qf/this.$get</t.prototype.$eval@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:140:215 qf/this.$get</t.prototype.$apply@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:140:447 jc/c/<@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:16:57 l/<.invoke@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:36:321 jc/c@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:15:1 jc@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:16:274 Bc@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:15:83 @java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:309:165 b@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:183:63 Kf@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:31:474 Jf/d@java/com/google/fonts/directory/ui/angular_js.js:31:423 undefined1 angular_js.js:113:8 e/<() angular_js.js:113 df/this.$get</<() angular_js.js:85 b/<() app_js.js:157 qf/this.$get</t.prototype.$apply() angular_js.js:140 jc/c/<() angular_js.js:16 l/<.invoke() angular_js.js:36 jc/c() angular_js.js:15 jc() angular_js.js:16 Bc() angular_js.js:15 <anonymous> angular_js.js:309 b() angular_js.js:183 Kf() angular_js.js:31 Jf/d() angular_js.js:31

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