Does Google Fonts slow down a site?

[tomdeane]

Hi,

I am using the Minimum Pro theme, and in the pingdom website speed test: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/cYAUuy/http://brighterfilms.com
and the scripts for google fonts seem to be slowing the load speed down a bit and under the performance grade section it says:

The following cacheable resources have a short freshness lifetime. Specify an expiration at least one week in the future for the following resources:
http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto%3A300%2C400%7CRoboto+Slab%3A300%2C400&ver=3.0

The following resources are missing a cache validator. Resources that do not specify a cache validator cannot be refreshed efficiently. Specify a Last-Modified or ETag header to enable cache validation for the following resources:

http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto%3A300%2C400%7CRoboto+Slab%3A300%2C400&ver=3.0

Is it then best to use a font hosted on your own server, or just a standard font on anyones computer? and if so, how do you change the font in the Minimum Pro theme and remove the current font?

Thanks,
Tom

[Marc]

Yes there is at least a mild impact to the site using a Google, or any downloaded font.

On this page you can see a gauge provided by Google as to the speed impact from downloading Roboto -
https://www.google.com/fonts#UsePlace:use/Collection:Roboto

Chances are downloading a font from your server will be slower than downloading a font from Google's server.

You are correct, for the fastest speed just allow the visitor to see the site using their browser fonts.

To remove the theme specified fonts just make edits the functions and the css to remove the Google fonts and replace them as you want with serif or non-serif.

IMHO, site appearance with a downloaded font is such that it is well worth the mild speed degradation. /.02

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