I have never heard of a virus in a font but after people figured out an IE exploit to put a virus in an image file I suppose anything is possible.
Is it safe to load fonts from a free font site, or best to just avoid them?
I’ve loaded my system up with free fonts, but usually from recommended sites. No problems yet.
Generally, if the font is just a .ttf file, everything’s safe.
If there’s an executable that “installs” the font (not that I’ve ever seen one) – beware.
Here are a few free font sites that seem fine: http://del.icio.us/RealityChuck/fonts