Google Web Fonts only returns a subset of requested fonts for IE8-. How to fix without uploading fonts to your server?

Question

Google

The stylesheet is connected like this:

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,300&subset=latin,cyrillic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

Answer in Chrome:

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 300;
  src: local('Open Sans Light'), local('OpenSans-Light'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/DXI1ORHCpsQm3Vp6mXoaTYraN7vELC11_xip9Rz-hMs.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 400;
  src: local('Open Sans'), local('OpenSans'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/RjgO7rYTmqiVp7vzi-Q5UT8E0i7KZn-EPnyo3HZu7kw.woff) format('woff');
}

Answer in IE9

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 300;
  src: url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/DXI1ORHCpsQm3Vp6mXoaTYM1ygXM8I716iU3CHRQUAk.eot);
  src: local('Open Sans Light'), local('OpenSans-Light'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/DXI1ORHCpsQm3Vp6mXoaTYM1ygXM8I716iU3CHRQUAk.eot) format('embedded-opentype'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/DXI1ORHCpsQm3Vp6mXoaTYraN7vELC11_xip9Rz-hMs.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 400;
  src: url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/RjgO7rYTmqiVp7vzi-Q5UfY6323mHUZFJMgTvxaG2iE.eot);
  src: local('Open Sans'), local('OpenSans'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/RjgO7rYTmqiVp7vzi-Q5UfY6323mHUZFJMgTvxaG2iE.eot) format('embedded-opentype'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/RjgO7rYTmqiVp7vzi-Q5UT8E0i7KZn-EPnyo3HZu7kw.woff) format('woff');
}

Answer in IE <= 8

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Open Sans';
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 400;
  src: url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/RjgO7rYTmqiVp7vzi-Q5UfY6323mHUZFJMgTvxaG2iE.eot);
  src: local('Open Sans'), local('OpenSans'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/RjgO7rYTmqiVp7vzi-Q5UfY6323mHUZFJMgTvxaG2iE.eot) format('embedded-opentype'), url(https://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/opensans/v6/RjgO7rYTmqiVp7vzi-Q5UT8E0i7KZn-EPnyo3HZu7kw.woff) format('woff');
}

As you can see, in the latter case, only one (400) style is returned, without 300. What's wrong?

Answer 1

An interesting point: if you connect 300 and 400 separately, then only one of them works on the page (in this case, 300). Perhaps this is the answer. IE most likely has a bug with font-weight. vs How I love internet explorer.