Download and Sync Google Fonts to Your Computer

Google's Web Fonts are really popular. Google created a directory of open source fonts that anyone can use, they're hosted by Google and it's easy to embed them. The most popular font is Open Sans, which has more than 2 billion views only for the last week.

Fonts like Open Sans, Droid Sans and Roboto are only preinstalled if you're using an Android device and there are many other fonts that aren't preinstalled, so how can you use them? "If a page uses web fonts, then the font files have to be downloaded to the site visitor's computer before they can be displayed initially. The font files are served compressed for a faster download. After that initial download, they will be cached in the browser. As the Google Fonts API becomes widely used, your visitors will be likely to already have the font you're using in their browser cache when they visit your page," explains Google.

A search for fonts.googleapis.com in Chrome's cache page (chrome://cache/) returned font families like Open Sans, Tangerine, Oswald, Noto Serif, IM Fell English, Arvo, Droid Sans.

If you want to download some of these fonts to your computer and sync them when they're updated, you can install SkyFonts, a free software for Windows and Mac OS X. "SkyFonts automatically updates the fonts installed on your system whenever they are updated on Google Fonts – for example, when new characters are added – ensuring you always have the latest fonts to work with. And with the fonts installed locally, browsing websites that use web fonts will be faster, since your browser won't have to spend time fetching font data," mentions Raziel Alvarez, from the Google Fonts team.

There are 624 font families and 1105 fonts right now, but SkyFonts only lets you download fonts one by one. It's probably a good idea to visit the Google Fonts directory, sort font families by popularity and download some of the font styles from fonts.com.

If you don't need the syncing feature, you can also download fonts from the Google Fonts site: click "Add to Collection" next to the fonts you want to download, then click the "Download" button, download the font families in your collection as a .zip file and use these instructions.

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

Jack Fellows, a reader of this blog, asked a question about Google's 404 error page: "Google changed their 404 error pages a couple of years ago now, and yet the title still says (and has from day 1) 'Error 404 (Not Found)!!1'. The exclamations marks don't look very professional anyway, but the '1' at the end looks really pants... or is it just me?!"

I don't think it's a mistake. It's probably a joke that references the "!1 phenomenon" meme. "In many cases, a string of exclamation marks followed by '1' can be read as a careless typo, though it has been increasingly used with intention to express a sense of urgency or excitement. While the configuration of QWERTY keyboard layout varies across different language zones, an exclamation point is almost always invoked by holding down the shift key and pressing the digit / symbol key (1/!). As a result, the erroneous input of '1' after a string of exclamation points became a common typo in online chat, especially when typing in haste."

On a related note, it's strange to see that Google's 404 error pages don't include useful information: a search box and a list of relevant pages. For example, when you type in the address bar www.google.com/chat, Google should suggest www.google.com/talk or this page about Gmail Chat.

Google could even use Chrome's "Oops!" pages. "Google Chrome can show suggestions for the page you were trying to reach, if it is unable to connect to the web address. Instead of a cryptic error message, you'll see suggestions to navigate to other parts of the website or to search for the page with Google."

How to Disable Google News for Tablets

If you don't like the tablet interface for Google News, there's a non-obvious way to switch to the desktop interface. Tap the "gear" button from the top-right of the page, select "Settings", uncheck "Use the new Google News (uncheck to revert to the old version)" and then tap "Save changes".

The tablet interface was launched in December 2012 and the goal was to add support for gestures. "You can find new articles, news sources, and even topics of interest with intuitive gestures. Swipe horizontally between sections – from Business to Entertainment, for example – or tap 'Explore in depth' to see multiple articles and other info related to a particular story." Google News for tablets is only available for English editions.

(<offtopic>Google Now Voice Search in a Forbes article? Really? From the article: "Google announced on Monday that the Google Now voice search capability is now available for your iPhone or iPad. The Google Now service is often compared to Apple's Siri – both are considered virtual personal assistants that will work by natural language voice commands." There are at least two mistakes: Google launched Google Now for iOS, not voice search, and Google Now has nothing to do with voice search.</offtopic>)