Custom Fonts Via Flash

sIFR: replace every headline with a tiny Flash movie, just to use a typeface.

In 2026: Dead twice: it needed Flash, and it solved a problem @font-face later solved properly. sIFR measured your heading with JavaScript, hid it, and floated a Flash movie of the same words in your font over the top, selectable and scalable, which in 2004 was miraculous. When real web fonts shipped around 2009 the whole apparatus evaporated.

Where it came from: Scalable Inman Flash Replacement: Shaun Inman's technique, 2004, industrialised as sIFR 2 by Mike Davidson and Mark Wubben. Retired by @font-face and WOFF around 2009.
Wikipedia ↗Wayback: Mike Industries ↗

<h2 id="headline">This Headline Wants To Be Futura</h2>

<script language="JavaScript">
// sIFR 2, abridged. The real call, left inert here with Flash gone:
// sIFR.replaceElement(named({sSelector: "h2#headline", sFlashSrc: "futura.swf",
//                            sColor: "#334455", sWmode: "transparent"}));
</script>

<p style="font:13px Verdana">With Flash gone the replacement never fires and you
are reading the honest H2 fallback, which is what screen readers always got.
The 2026 version is two lines of @font-face.</p>