… these are the three most basic and well known ways to use custom fonts on the Internet. Like any other thing, they have both advantages and disadvantages.

@font-face

This is one of my favourite features introduced in CSS3.

Pros:

• easy to implement
• large variety of APIs
• easy to customise
• easy to add to elements in the page
• no other scripts needed

Cons:

• poor support for antique browsers (IE)
• some modern browsers (specifically Chrome and Opera) don’t render @font-face too well e.g. has some rough edges.

This is a good option if you want to avoid any hassle. Pretty straight forward.

cufon

I just began using it here and I like it.

Pros:

• supported on almost all browsers (including Opera Mini!!!)
• renders beautifully in all supported browsers
• customizable

Cons:

• uses JS to load and work
• you can’t select the cufon text anymore (no more copy-paste)
• you can’t use all the characters, just the ones you select when creating the font’s JS
• although it is customizable, doing it can give you a headache
• also it can be hard to apply to more than one element, especially if you want to add some effects (hover for example)

sIFR

Pros:

• the text can be selected
• supported on almost all web browsers
• it renders fine on all supported browsers

Cons:

• it uses Flash
• for Flash to work it also needs JS
• it’s Flash
• the text won’t appear until the scripts are loaded
• …aaand it’s Flash

The Flash bit kinda says the whole story. That’s the main reason why I never used it. My current favourite is cufon, I think. I can’t really choose between it and @font-face because of their pros and cons.

Which is your favourite?