568794 - "Allow pages to choose their own fonts" should be a per-site preference.

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Screwtape]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100527 Minefield/3.7a5pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100527 Minefield/3.7a5pre

For a very long time, web sites have been limited to the short list of fonts widely available, with the result that no matter how many lovely fonts a user might install on their computer, web-pages always render with the clunkiest and mediocre fonts available.

Enter the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts" checkbox. I can select an attractive and well-rendered default (such as Lucida Grande on OS X, or Droid Sans on Linux) and relax in typographic comfort.

However, modern versions of Firefox support web-fonts. Page authors who care can set their pages to use even better, more appropriate fonts than my default, and every time I view such a page (admittedly, most such pages are "look at this demonstration of web-fonts") I have to trek into a Preferences sub-dialog to tick that checkbox, trek all the way back, look at the page, then repeat the process to untick the box again (If I just left it ticked all the time, I'd still be visually assaulted by the works of less-conscientious page authors).

A more concrete rationale is that I believe the FreeType authors haven't put much effort into hardening their rendering engine against arbitrary untrusted data; more security conscious individuals might want to leave the feature disabled in general, but allow it for trusted sites.

I believe that "allow pages to choose their own fonts" should be a per-site preference in the Page Info window, along side "Load images", "Open Pop-up Windows" and "Set Cookies".

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit a site that demonstrates webfont usage.
2. Open Page Info window.
3. Switch to "Permissions" tab.
4. Look for "Allow Custom Fonts" setting.
Actual Results:  
No per-site custom-fonts setting.

Expected Results:  
A per-site setting that determines whether the site is allowed to use fonts that aren't the default set by the user.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

My old Prefbuttons extension has a button to show the original font on click.
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Internet-Utilities/Pref-Buttons.shtml
Not sure if this version still has the feature.

Comment 2

[Juan Francisco Cantero Hurtado]

I know that the bug is old but I think that this bug remains important.

These days, some designers are using webfonts for icons, and for people with the option "allow pages to choose their fonts", this breaks these web pages. GitHub is a example of this problem. 

I know that to use a webfont for icons is a very bad practice and breaks the accessibility of the web pages, but I can't change the brain of these designers, so I need this option.

I'll attach a screenshot of the github, the problem is very annoying. I don't want blame only to github. but their web is a good example.

I'm not the only with this problem http://superuser.com/questions/280463/setting-allow-pages-to-choose-their-own-fonts-on-a-per-domain-basis-in-firefox . Also, other users complained about of this when github changed to webfonts for icons, but github removed the comments, so I can't show you a screenshot with the complains of the users.

Comment 3

[Juan Francisco Cantero Hurtado]

Attachment: Screenshot of GitHub with "allow pages to choose their fonts" disabled

Comment 4

[mattengi]

I love this "allow pages to choose their fonts" feature. But it would be better get per site settings

Comment 5

[nyanpasu64]

It's 2020. The icon font issue has changed; PUA area fonts now work, but Material Icons (which uses ligatures to represent icons) has gained popularity. With this setting on, Material Icons instead appear as underscore-separated words which are significantly larger than the icon itself.

The primary reason I want a per-site toggle for fonts is because I want Google Docs to use site-specific fonts, but other sites to use browser-set fonts.

Comment 6

[`{third: "Beedell", first: "Roke"}`{.JSON5}]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=568794#c0

[e-mail], I support this. However, I believe that it should be implemented as https://github.com/darkreader/darkreader/issues/28#issue-159806931 has implemented its overrides (separate black and white lists) and allow it to be globally overridden (like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1881610#c0 describes).