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How Safe are Torrents?
Surrey Dave - 19/4/06 at 10:49 PM

If one possibly alledgedly , tried to download torrent stuff ,would it be advisable to check it after downloading with a virus/trojan/spyware checker?

What might be a good one to use in that situation?

MikeRJ - 19/4/06 at 10:56 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Surrey Dave
If one possibly alledgedly , tried to download torrent stuff ,would it be advisable to check it after downloading with a virus/trojan/spyware checker?

What might be a good one to use in that situation?


If you have downloaded anything executable then yes. AVG and AVAST are both good and free for home use.

Liam - 19/4/06 at 10:59 PM

My free antivirus (avast - very good indeed) would automatically detect anything nasty as soon as it's downloaded and get rid of it. Wouldnt need to manually scan downloaded files.

Liam

Hellfire - 20/4/06 at 07:19 AM

From the torrents I have downloaded - I have only found one "nasty" in ages.

You get more "nasties" from legit websites (data-miners and stuff). IMO

gingerprince - 20/4/06 at 07:48 AM

quote:
would it be advisable to check it after downloading with a virus/trojan/spyware checker?


It's a foolish man that doesn't have a virus checker running anyway these days, so yes!

AVG is free so there's no reason not to.

Surrey Dave - 20/4/06 at 08:53 AM

i may be many things but one of them is not foolish!!.

I've run without firewall and virus checker for yonks, and had very few probs, being a cynical git it seems that when you have Norton or McAfee etc , there doesn't seem to be a shortage of detected problems to justify their existance.

I've just installed and scanned with Avast and I have no 'nasties' .

If I used torrents it would be mainly for music nothing executable.

RazMan - 20/4/06 at 09:39 AM

Strangely the virus problems seem to be subsiding in recent years. However the plague of pop-ups and dialers seem to be on the increase but mainly come from dodgy porn sites.
Torrents seem to be quite safe IMO and if you are downloading music there are very few problems.

SeaBass - 20/4/06 at 10:43 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Surrey Dave
i may be many things but one of them is not foolish!!.

I've run without firewall and virus checker for yonks, and had very few probs, being a cynical git it seems that when you have Norton or McAfee etc , there doesn't seem to be a shortage of detected problems to justify their existance.

I've just installed and scanned with Avast and I have no 'nasties' .

If I used torrents it would be mainly for music nothing executable.


I'd wholeheartedly agree with all the statements above. I've had a PC since I was 14 all of thirteen years now! I have never had any virus problems, data miners, trojans, spyware etc etc etc.

If you are careless in your use of a machine it will go wrong - same with tools in the workshop or garage.

Using non standard browsers and mailers helps straight away.

Thanks

MikeRJ - 20/4/06 at 11:08 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Surrey Dave
i may be many things but one of them is not foolish!!.

I've run without firewall and virus checker for yonks, and had very few probs,


Me too, I have never had a virus scanner on my PC, though I do use the firewall built into my router. With a bit of common sense you can avoid getting virii quite easily, though IME all bets are off once you start using peer to peer networks to get e.g. cracked applications.

Trend have a reasonably good on-line virus checker that runs through your web browser should you ever need it:

Trend Housecall

Surrey Dave - 20/4/06 at 12:05 PM

MikeRJ - Hence my original question

I'm glad to find I'm not the only weirdo without , virus protection, and I quite agree the only time I've had problems is when searching for FREE software or 'cracks' for such software, so you kind of get what you deserve .

Hellfire - 20/4/06 at 12:42 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Surrey Dave
MikeRJ - Hence my original question

I'm glad to find I'm not the only weirdo without , virus protection, and I quite agree the only time I've had problems is when searching for FREE software or 'cracks' for such software, so you kind of get what you deserve .


Not the only weirdo - (noooo siree bob!) I have AVG ewido and firewall and regularly get priority updates. I've had a few blocked virus's but just this morning I got 65 data miners (not nasties as such) which ewido picked up all from legitimate websites (that AVG didn't stop). If you don't have dataminers my guess is you're not using software that detects them or not using any at all. Dataminers are written exactly to find out what you click on... Oh and I use Firefox so using non-standard browsers is no prevention.