Font Frenzy cleans out unnecessary Windows XP fonts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Font Frenzy cleans out unnecessary Windows XP fonts

by Brad Linder Aug 16th 2007

The more fonts you have installed on your Windows computer, the slower it boots. It's one of those basic facts of life. It's not fair, but it's true. Because Windows needs to read each and every font while it's loading, it can take 30 seconds longer to boot a system with 1000 fonts installed than one with 100.

It turns out Windows XP installs just 44 fonts. All the other fonts on your system were probably installed by other programs. And you can safely remove the majority of them. But who has the time to sift through all of those fonts one by one?

Font Frenzy simplifies things by letting you uninstall any non-Windows font with just a few clicks. Worried that you might accidentally delete fonts that you meant to keep? No problem, you can create a snapshot of your font directory which you can use as a restore point. You can reinstall all of your fonts or just pick and choose from your backup directory.

There's also a handy font viewer for seeing how various fonts look at different point-sizes, and a browser for adding and removing fonts on a case by case basis.

Keep in mind that this software is designed for Windows XP. There are several new fonts included in Windows Vista. So using Font Frenzy to remove all non-system fonts in Windows Vista could actually result in removing necessary fonts.

[via gHacks]

Tags: boot, font, font frenzy, FontFrenzy, fonts, optimization, type

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

RP said 1:54PM on 8-16-2007

I installed FontFrenzy 1.5.0.151. Looks nice.

But when I click "FrendySnap" to preserve a snapshot of my fonts, it crashes. The crash is in fontfrenzy.exe, offset 0x00010913. (Send me the source and I can probably fix it.)

Now I'm nervous about using the font delete feature...

Brad Linder said 1:56PM on 8-16-2007

Well, you can always back up your fonts the old fashioned way by copying them to a new folder on your PC. But you might want to submit that bug report to the developer. There's a contact box on their website.

Gardiner Westbound said 2:43PM on 8-16-2007

It's not ready for prime time. It crashed on me too.

This is the second time this week a Download Squad recommended application has malfunctioned. Perhaps they should be checked before the information is published.

Jason said 7:55PM on 8-16-2007

I was going to try it but I've been looking on that page for a download link for ten minutes and I can't find one. I have a short attention span so I've lost interest now, sorry.

People, stop hiding the download links on your pages.

Martin said 7:56PM on 8-16-2007

Thanks for the link to my site. I tried the software on Windows XP SP 2 and it worked without problems. I was able to backup all fonts and remove them without crashes.
The download link is hidden, that is true. You need to move your mouse over the FontFrenzy entry in the left menu which opens a submenu with a Download link.

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