Google web fonts - how reliable are they?

Question

I use Google fonts quite a lot, especially ones like:-

<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Titillium+Web:200' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' />

Should these only be used for 'parts' of the web site or is it okay to use these for the content of the entire site?

body { background-color:#292828; font-family: 'Titillium Web',Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; }

Also, is there any alternative/better ways to use custom fonts other than using Google fonts or images?

Answer 1

You can create your own webfonts, if you want.

There's webfont generators, and here's one.

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And about your question about are google webfonts reliable?

Yes. Yes they're. Think it like this: When did Google go down? If it happens, it's probably the last thing you should care of.

Answer 2

Google web-fonts are reliable. But if you want to use them and host them on your own server then simply go the stylesheet url. In your case, the urls is

http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Titillium+Web:200

when you visit it then you will see another url in it as follow:

 @font-face {
  font-family: 'Titillium Web';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 200;
  src: local('Titillium WebThin'), local('TitilliumWeb-Thin'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/titilliumweb/v1/anMUvcNT0H1YN4FII8wpr3XqdloEk0Ij5qwGW4qO9RM.woff) format('woff');
}

after that, copy the url from it. in this case the url is:

http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/titilliumweb/v1/anMUvcNT0H1YN4FII8wpr3XqdloEk0Ij5qwGW4qO9RM.woff

when u visit the url, a font file will get downloaded to your computer. upload that file to your web server and include it in your style sheet as follow:

    @font-face {
  font-family: 'any name of the font you wnat';

  src: url(the url to your file on your own server just like u link to  an image);
}

Now after inclusion, you can use it anywhere on your site where you desire and where the stylesheet is included by calling font-family: the name of the font you used above;

Any doubt, please ask :)