May 1, 2013 update: I’m no longer providing a download link to the font files. Please use the googlewebfonts repository on GitHub. Just click the Zip button.

Google’s Font Directory and API for web fonts could have a transformative effect on how we read the web. The only problem is, Google has made it very difficult to download all of the actual font files.

Web designers must be free to experiment with fonts, to sketch, comp and get to know the typefaces in browser and non-browser applications. Making the fonts difficult to get or requiring special software isn’t helpful.