sIFR version 3 is currently in beta, and it looks to be far more user-friendly than previous iterations. If you're unfamiliar with sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement), the quick description is that it's a way to use any font you like on your website through the use of Javascript, Flash and CSS. sIFR is not the future of text on the web given it has several large drawbacks. However, used carefully, it is a relatively painless way to bypass the limitations of typical web typography until a better solution is found a few years down the road.

Below is a portion of a page I've been working on using traditional plain text fonts.

Here is the same page with sIFR enabled, replacing the headers and image caption.

From my brief exposure to sIFR so far, I'm fairly impressed. Below I've listed some of the pros and cons that I've run into; this is hardly an exhaustive list and will likely be modified as I gain more experience with sIFR.

Pros:

Use any font you like. The biggest plus to sIFR is that it allows you to use any font you wish, beautifully anti-aliased, without needing it to be installed on the user machine. Want to render all your H2s in Wingdings? Well, now you can, whether you should or not.

Selectable Text. Text can be selected/copied, although the Flash text behaves a little less responsively than normal text (at least on my WinXP machine).

Code is unmodified. Except for adding a few new JS and CSS file calls to the header, sIFR requires no changes to your HTML or CSS.

Accessible. Since your HTML is unchanged, sIFR sacrifices neither accessibility nor search engine friendliness (unlike using images).

Degrades gracefully. Since neither the HTML nor CSS is changed, the site degrades gracefully into plain text alternatives when Flash or Javascript is unavailable.

Cons:

Complexity. While far easier to use than sIFR 2, it is still a somewhat tedious process to create the Flash files and get the proper spacing through trial and error for the flash alternatives. sIFR 3 requires the use of multiple JS, CSS and Flash files and (for the creation of Flash files), requires access to a Flash editor.

Increased page load. While rather streamlined, adding additional Javascript, CSS and Flash movies does somewhat increase the file size and processing demands needed to render pages.

Requires Flash and Javascript. Both Flash and Javascript must be enabled for sIFR to replace fonts, although, in their absence, pages will degrade gracefully to their normal HTML equivalents.

Not useful for large blocks of text. Due to processing demands (and possible issues of line-spacing and placement), sIFR is discouraged for use with large blocks of text.

sIFR is most useful for replacing headers and short, important bits of text. A better web typography solution will certainly present itself in the coming years, but for now sIFR serves its purpose well when carefully applied.

Resources

Main sIFR site
Examples of sIFR typography
Tutorial: This is how you get sIFR to work