There was a time when developers used to heavily rely on sprites to reduce the amount of browser requests for different icons. These days Font icons are used heavily. Are they slowly replacing sprites?
What are the advantages of using Font icons over Sprites?
There are only advantages in using Font icons than using Image based sprites.
Go and use Font icons without worrying about anything. It's time we make better web applications. :)
Just to counter a bit: If your connection is slow or the font isn't loading, you are stuck with unicode characters without any meaning. I tend to rely on SVG more and more, both inline and as sprites.
In any case, be aware that it's better to do both icons and text, just to be safe when someone loses their connection for some reason. ;)
Building web apps without using Font icons is the most idiotic thing to do today. I hate seeing pixelated icons on websites. Bad icons ruin the user experience completely.
Use font icons — it will save your time and efforts.
hagrid
Technically fully agree, font icons are a great solution. BUT.. look out if you want your web application to be consumed in highly security conscious environments.. I know of a few banks who disable font downloads as part of their standard browser rollout config. End users operate in fully locked down environments and will just think your web design is bad, they probably won't know or understand that your site looks ugly because of a decision taken by their security administrators...