Torrents safe?

Im very new to the whole torrent thing, Ive always heard about them but never really considered using them until now, but I was wondering how safe they are, could i really mess things up by downloading from the torrent sites?

you mac will be safe but you wont be if your cought with illegal copies of music and sw etc

inflexion said:

you mac will be safe but you wont be if your cought with illegal copies of music and sw etc

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not that i will be partatking in any illegal downloading but do alot of people get caught??

brianwithan eye said:

not that i will be partatking in any illegal downloading but do alot of people get caught??

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The one's that typically get nailed are heavy users. Torrents are not indetectible meaning it's possible to track you. I have a couple friends who use newsgroups to d/l illegal stuff but I have no idea how it's done, nor care to.

Hey brian,

Admittedly, I sometimes download from torrent sites. I download an album, and if I like it, I buy it, otherwise it ends up in the trash. I never had any malware related problems or anything like that. BUT, I think that it's a rather risky business to partake in, because the RIAA means business when it comes to tracking people down. They contacted my cousin about downloading illegal stuff, and he ended up making some sort of deal with them -- it wasn't cheap, though.

Since that happened, I lowered my torrent activities substantially. It's better to be safe than sorry. You never know who's out there, snooping around.

My advice to you is: Don't download from torrent sites.

When I was a Windows user, I did pirate programs out the ***, but ended up with a gunky system, full of spyware and software I didn't own... I didn't even need the crap I downloaded and installed. I guess I just did it because I could.

Since I switched to the Mac, anything that I have installed is either free, or I paid for it. It's a nice feeling to know that my Mac is legit, 100%.

I know that some programs out there carry a ridiculously high pricetag, but that's because they're for professional use.

Sorry about the rant... just wanted to share my opinion.

im surprized this threads not closed yet....

ya really

using Torrents is just as safe as limewire.the only reason to use these programs really is to download illegal stuff. and downloading illegal stuff isnt safe but millions of people do it so your saying to your self its a 1 in a million chance ill get caught. one way to minimize getting caught it not to share but if everyone did this the whole file sharing principles would die. contact your ISP before you do this and see if they give you a warning before giving your info out to the RAA(whatever it is) i know my isp gives 3 warnings and on the third you get droped from their service and they turn your info over the authorities. it seems to me that the only people who care about file-sharing is the music industry and i havent heard about any people getting sued for downloading programs.

RIAA goes after the creators of p2p programs and big traders, like how enforcement goes after the drug makers and dealers. They go after the source. I mean you hear about like 60 people getting sued every so often but they're like the ones with servers and networks full of copyrighted material. Yes there are the odd downloaders that don't have a huge pile of illegal mp3's, etc. But 60 out of the millions and millions... not a big chance you'll get caught. Again it's your computer, so the choice is up to you.

And then once they get your IP, its up to your ISP contract if they can to turn ya in.

**closed**