How is this fantastic anti-aliasing of non-web fonts done?

This is a question that's been bugging me for ages, and I just can't find the answer. Often when browsing websites I see anti-aliasing placed on non-web fonts, and I really want to know how it's done.

Here's a couple of examples of it's usage:

Fireball Design

Shopify Partners (Header text)

If anyone knows how this is done and could tell me, I would be very grateful, I've searched all over for a tu开发者_JAVA百科torial or even a couple of posts on how this is done, and failed to find anything aside from using Adobe Flash sIFR (which isn't what I'm looking for, as these are all done without it).

Your "fantastic anti-aliasing" is merely a text-shadow! Looking at the source of the first page, text-shadow: rgba(255, 254, 255, 0.24) 1px 1px 2px;.

Also, in what way are those fonts not "webfonts"? And why does the distinction matter?

There are many of webfont solutions out there. Check out this comparison table for overview: http://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/comparison-of-web-fonts-solutions - there you have also a brief description, how each of solutions work.

Sites you are mentioning are both using Typekit - you can find it on http://typekit.com/