Comic Sans was An alternative history
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Brian Inglis
Peter Flbutt Briefly (okay, not briefly), here's what they're discussing, and the point is a valid one. outlines for some number of glyphs. If you want to set...
Not exactly true. Microsoft used to have a set of ten common TrueType fonts (including Arial and Comic Sans) available for free download - no strings attached. They called this "Core fonts for the Web". The purpose of this exercise was to make it easier to design web pages that will look the same on all platforms (or, more cynically, further cement the fonts that come with Windows and IE as an established standard, whichever way you want to look at it.)
Later, however, Microsoft suddenly discontinued the project. The font pack was removed from their site but it remained available on various other sites as the attached licence didn't forbid redistributing it. For example, Debian GNU-Linux (as well as Ubuntu) has a package for these font (though the package itself does not actually contain the fonts but rather scripts that fetch them from elsewhere):
More information:
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As for the "4 fonts" mentioned in the original message, there are various web pages - primarily aimed at web page designers - which offer differing views and opinions on the subject of what might or might not be considered a set of "web-safe fonts". As one might suspect, there is no clear consensus about this. See for yourself:
-- znark