If you’re of a certain age (and not American), there’s a specific corporate font you’re most likely aware of. You may not know its exact name, and you may not actively remember it, but once you see it, you know exactly what you’re looking at. The font’s called Nokia Sans (and Nokia Serif), and it was used by pretty much every single Nokia device between roughly 2002 and 2013 or so, when it was replaced by a very bland font made by Bruno Maag (with help from the person who designed Comic Sans) that they used after that.

I can’t remember why, exactly, but I got majorly nostalgic for Nokia’s characteristic, recognisable font, and decided to see if it would work as a user interface font. Now, the font is still owned by Nokia and I couldn’t find a proper place to download it, but I eventually stumbled upon a site that had each individual variant listed for download. I downloaded each of them, installed them using KDE’s font installation method, and tried it out as my user interface font.

You’ll quickly discover you shouldn’t use the regular variant, but should instead opt for the Nokia Sans Wide variant. Back in 2011, when Nokia originally announced it was replacing Nokia Sans, the creator of the font, Erik Spiekermann, responded to the announcement on his blog. Apparently, one of the major reasons for Nokia to change fonts was that they claimed Nokia Sans wouldn’t work as a user interface font, but Spiekermann obviously disagrees, pointing specifically to the Wide variant. In fact, Spiekermann does not pull any punches.

After 10 years it was high time to look at Nokia’s typefaces as the dominant visual voice of the brand but whoever decided on a completely new direction was either not aware of what was available or was persuaded by Bruno Maag to start over. Bruno may not create the most memorable typefaces, but he certainly knows how to sell them. And technically, their fonts are excellent. Too bad they didn’t have the confidence to work with me on an update. Instead they’re throwing out ten years of brand recognition in favour of blandness.

↫ Erik Spiekermann

I was pleasently surprised by just how nice the font looks when used as a general user interface font. It’s extremely legible at a variety of sizes, and has a ton of character without becoming gimmicky or overbearing. What originally started as mere curiosity has now become my UI font of choice on all my machines, finally displacing Inter after many years of uncontested service. Of course, all of this is deeply personal and 95% an issue of taste, but I wanted to write about it to see if I’m just entirely crazy, or if there’s some method to my madness.

Do note that I’m using high DPI displays, and KDE on Wayland, and that all of this may look different on Windows or macOS, or on displays with lower DPI. One of Inter’s strengths is that it renders great on both high and lower DPI displays, but since I don’t have any lower DPI displays anymore, I can’t test it in such an environment. I’m also not entirely sure about the legal status of downloading fonts like this, but I am fairly sure you’re at least allowed to use non-free fonts for personal, non-commercial use, but please don’t quote me on that. Since downloading each variant of these Nokia fonts is annoying, I’d love to create and upload a zip file containing all of them, but I’m sure that’s illegal.

I’m not a font connoisseur, so I may be committing a huge faux pas here? Not that I care, but reading about font nerds losing their minds over things I never even noticed is always highly entertaining.

Earlier today, I made the decision to remove all advertising from OSNews. From here on out, you will no longer see any ads, cookie banners, and other ad-related privacy-invasive technologies on this website. While this means a hit to my income, making OSNews even more reliant on our Patreon supporters and Ko-Fi donors, it genuinely feels liberating. I should’ve made this decision years ago. Read on for how you can support us, and our big fundraiser.

I have always been open and honest about my dislike for the modern online advertising industry. It’s incredibly privacy-invasive, a massive security risk, generally lacking in taste, and genuinely intrusive. As such, despite running ads on OSNews, I have always advocated for the concept of “your computer, your rules”, meaning only you, the user, gets to decide what gets run on your computer and displayed on your screen. This includes the use of ad-blockers.

I have a Pi-Hole, and you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Because of this, maintaining ads on OSNews became untenable. Everything about the ads on our site, from the actual ads themselves to the annoying cookie banners talking about “our 1500 partners”, gave me the ick, as the young, hip people say, and I’ve been considering turning them off for a long time. Today, after yet another reader rightfully pointing out how absurd our cookie banner was, I finally made the call. One email to our owner, David Adams, later, and we’re now entirely ad-free, for everyone.

This is a hit to my income, and as such, I kindly ask anyone capable of doing so to support the continued existence of OSNews. How can you support OSNews?

• You can become an OSNews Patreon, and get some comment bling if you so desire.
• You can make individual donations through Ko-Fi. For this purpose, I’ve set an incredibly ambitious, long-term fundraiser goal of €5000.
• You can buy our merch! T-shirts, mugs, sweaters – with amazing designs and top-notch quality.

We’ve been online since 1997, meaning soon we’ll be hitting our 30-year anniversary. Very few websites can boast about such a long, uninterrupted existence, and despite all the changes both the industry and the world at large have gone through, OSNews is still here, doing what it has always done. The removal of ads means we’re even more dependent on you, dear readers, but I’m confident in saying that we’ll make it another 30 years.

Thank you for all your continued support over the decades, and let’s keep going. Without icky ads.

ICE Lawyers Are Hiding Their Names in Immigration Court:

"I've never heard of someone in open court not being identified," said Elissa Steglich, a law professor and co-director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin. "Part of the court's ethical obligation is transparency, including clear identification of the parties. Not identifying an attorney for the government means if there are unethical or professional concerns regarding [the Department of Homeland Security], the individual cannot be held accountable. And it makes the judge appear partial to the government."

"Part of the court's ethical obligation is transparency, including clear identification of the parties." [...]

When Judge ShaSha Xu omitted the ICE lawyer's name, Attorney Jeffrey Okun asked her to identify who was arguing to deport his client. She refused.

Xu attributed the change to "privacy" because "things lately have changed." Xu told Okun that he could use Webex's direct messaging function to send the ICE lawyer his email, and the ICE lawyer would probably respond with her own name and address. [...]

The government's mystery attorney, who was prosecuting both Okun's and Gonzalez-Venegas's clients, wore glasses and a navy blue suit; her hair was pulled back primly from her face. She spoke quietly, with a tinge of vocal fry. Her name, according to Gonzalez Venegas, was Cosette Shachnow.

Shachnow, 33, began working for ICE in 2021, shortly after she graduated from law school, according to public records and her LinkedIn account. The latter lists "Civil Rights and Social Action" among her "favored causes."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.