Font / InDesign crashes - need 2nd opinions vs. our tech guy... PLS hurry...

Question

Two graphic design/computer questions: (we're having issues with fonts/indesign on our G5)
1.) Our tech guy says to NEVER use fonts (freebees) from DaFont.com as they are just a 'time bomb waiting to happen'
2.) When opening certain files in InDesign CS3, it will tell you certain fonts are not loaded, even though suitcase says they are... so he said you 'have to go through the process of then deactivating/reactivating them every time you open the files' (?!?!) and that it's a problem with InDesign.
Anyone shed a good second/third/etc. opinion on these issues?
/proactive thanks

Answer 1

I'm a Windows user, so I have fewer font issues, but I don't use free fonts. Most of the time I think they'd probaly crash the system right away if they were going to, but so many of them have other problems it really isn't worth the risk of bad output for commercial work. If ID is crashing, the first thing to try is removing those fonts, though.
Fonts might show as not loaded if there is a version difference or a font type difference, and having more than one type of font with the same name loaded can cause all sorts of trouble. I stopped using Suitcase at version 9 because I got tired of buggy behavior (on Macs at my job) and having to rebuild the database once a month. Perhaps things have improved, but we still see posts with Suitcase related problems more often than other font managers, I think. That could be related to market share as easily as program quality, though.
A very smart prepress tech I now does all his font activations manually. He saves customer fonts into folders, then drags the folders into and out of the font library when starting and finishing a job.