Bit Torrent - Safe or not ?

[theheyes]

I am not after loads of free stuff, as clearly there is a lot more to it than I understand, and I have too much on my hard drives to risk any problems.

Is this data backed up? Save yourself some potential future pain and make a copy of it.

 

[neil_g]

Almost all software obtained via bittorrent from common tracker sites like Piratebay are just that, pirate.
You know this, don't feign ignorance.
The chances they contain viruses et al are high.

If you store any personal information on your desktop machine, like bank account logins, you are putting yourself at risk when installing hooky software. Regardless of whether you're running the latest AV/Antispyware/whatever crap you think you need.

If you are going do download executable content from anywhere make sure the source is reliable and you check the hash value of the downloaded content.

i have to disagree, i have downloaded free programs off of there before when not even the developers website.

im not going to sit here and say ive never downloaded anything from there that wasnt legal, and im not supporting that. but avast has always picked up anything dodgy before it instaled.

like said, check the comments on the torrent USUALLY if its dodgy someone will say so.