Downloading Fonts Legally

[G. Wen]

Does Adobe give you an option from their website to download fonts that are available on later versions of Illustrator for the earlier version that I have? (If they do, I can't find it.)

If not, does anyone know where I can download fonts for free, at a safe place, where I won't get a virus/worm/weirdcomputervoodoothing?

Remember, the words here are free and legally.

[Temple Fugate]

I doubt Adobe would be just giving away fonts they package with their newer software.

If you want free fonts, I recommend Blambot (http://www.blambot.com/fonts.shtml) for some really eye-catching ones. (The free ones are the ones without dots next to them.) They specialize in comic fonts, though, so if you're looking for nice, refined, serifed fonts, they won't be there.

[Blackstar]

Chank Diesel's site, The Chankstore, has some pretty decent free fonts as well. Not all of the fonts there are free, of course, but there is a section for fonts that you can get for free.

[Silverstar]

I know a few places where you can get free fonts; font-collecting is kind of a hobby of mine. On some sites they're all free, others just have a Free Fonts section.

The Font Guy
The Font Fairy
Fontdiner.com
Fontalicious.com
Blambot.com
Acid Fonts
Funky Fonts
Famous Fonts (these are fonts used for movies, TV shows and commercial products)
Chank. com
Rotodesign Fonts (though that site was recently absorbed by Chank)

[Bird Boy]

dafont.com is also a great site for fonts as well.

-BB

[Temple Fugate]

Related question:

I bought a CD of something like 5,000 fonts a while ago, and the package warned not to install every single one of them. Is it true that overloading a computer with fonts will drag down performance? Does every font in the database get loaded into the RAM when the computer boots up or something?

[Silverstar]

Fonts in general take up a lot of space on a computer's hard drive, like pictures, which is why most computer geeks don't recommend you having too many of them at once. Bear in mind that most fonts have standard, italic and bold versions, as well as solid and outline versions in some cases; on average a font can take up anywhere from 20 to 42 KB on a computer. That's not too much alone, but if you have something in the neighborhood of 200 to 300 fonts, each with so many different variations which need to be loaded and run each time you use your computer, it adds up.

If you have an external drive or a memory stick, you can always put a bunch of the fonts that you don't use all the time there, if you're concerned about keeping space free on your hard drive.