Why does this "Slow network detected..." log appear in Chrome?

google-chrome font-face
Acauã Montiel picture Acauã Montiel · Oct 20, 2016 · Viewed 209.9k times · Source

I noticed this info log began to appear in Google Chrome Dev (Version 55.0.2883.18 dev) and I can't imagine why.

Slow network is detected. Fallback font will be used while loading: http://font-path.extension`

It appears on all websites that use font-face, even on local pages and Chrome extensions.

Print screen of a local website

Answer

Ivan Akulov picture Ivan Akulov · Nov 1, 2016

This means the network is slow, and Chrome is replacing a web font (loaded with a @font-face rule) with a local fallback.

By default, the text rendered with a web font is invisible until the font is downloaded (“flash of invisible text”). With this change, the user on a slow network could start reading right when the content is loaded instead of looking into the empty page for several seconds.

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