Safe Fonts
Safe Fonts is an optional module that reduces and controls the external Google Fonts requests made by your theme or other plugins. It acts on any enqueued stylesheet (<link>) whose URL points at fonts.googleapis.com, and offers two independent behaviours you can toggle separately: load optimisation and holding the stylesheet until consent is granted.
The module provides tools to cut and defer third-party font requests. It is not legal advice and does not by itself guarantee any particular legal outcome. True self-hosting of the font files is out of scope for this version of the module; it reduces and gates the external calls rather than moving the files.
Enabling the module
Section titled “Enabling the module”The module is off by default. Enable it in WooCommerce > Polski > Modules (module key safe_fonts). Once enabled it only acts on the storefront; the admin area is skipped. If the module cannot recognise or rewrite a given tag, it returns it untouched, so fonts always keep working (graceful degradation).
| Mode | What it does |
|---|---|
| Optimise | Appends display=swap to the Google Fonts URL when missing, and emits preconnect resource hints for fonts.googleapis.com and (with crossorigin) fonts.gstatic.com. This trims layout shift and the connection cost without changing what is loaded. |
| Gate until consent | Rewrites the Google Fonts <link> into a disabled placeholder link (the real URL is kept in a data attribute). A tiny controller re-enables it only once the visitor has granted the chosen consent category. Until then the external request is not made. |
The two modes are independent. You can enable one, both, or neither.
Optimise
Section titled “Optimise”When optimisation is on, the module:
- appends
display=swapto the Google Fonts stylesheet URL when it lacks an explicitdisplayvalue. Non-font URLs are left untouched. - prints two
preconnecthints in<head>: one forhttps://fonts.googleapis.comand one forhttps://fonts.gstatic.com(with thecrossoriginattribute).
This behaviour does not block any requests; it only reduces layout shift and the cost of opening the connection.
Gate until consent
Section titled “Gate until consent”When this mode is on, the module turns the Google Fonts tag into a disabled stylesheet (disabled, media="print", href="about:blank") that fetches nothing. The real URL is stored in data-polski-safefont and the chosen consent category in data-polski-consent. A small frontend controller re-enables the stylesheet only once the visitor has granted the configured consent category, and it also reacts to the Consent Manager’s polskiConsentChange event.
A <noscript> fallback containing the original tag is preserved, so fonts still load when JavaScript is disabled. The controller is enqueued only when a font was actually gated on the current request.
This mode works together with the Consent Manager module (the consent category and the consent-change event come from it). For gating to be meaningful, the consent category must be genuinely enforced on the visitor’s side.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”Settings live on the module card in WooCommerce > Polski > Modules.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Optimise | on | Appends display=swap and prints preconnect hints for the Google Fonts hosts. |
| Gate until consent | off | Holds the Google Fonts stylesheet until the chosen consent category is granted. |
| Consent category | Preferences | The consent category required to load fonts when gating is on. |
Graceful degradation
Section titled “Graceful degradation”If a tag cannot be parsed or safely reconstructed (for example, it is not a standard rel="stylesheet" link), the module returns it unchanged. This means unsupported cases never break the page, and fonts load as they did before.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”Fonts do not load after enabling gating - check that the visitor has granted the chosen consent category and that the Consent Manager module is active. Until consent is given, the stylesheet stays disabled.
display=swap does not appear - this applies only to URLs pointing at fonts.googleapis.com, and only when the URL does not already carry an explicit display value.
Locally hosted theme fonts do not change - the module acts only on external Google Fonts requests. Locally hosted fonts are not affected.
Report issues: github.com/wppoland/polski/issues