Community poll forum: Have you ever received a virus from using a P2P program?

I 've never got a bug through P2P because I don't use them, but I have plenty of stories of users on my network who have used P2P to download songs, videos, etc, who have received unknown MALWARE as a side benefit. My job is to detect P2P traffic and stop it, especially when it clogs up the network traffic, by someone using a machine to make a 30gb download of 24.

I have dl files with a virus/trojan but everytime the file is .rar or ziped I scan to make sure, so 've never gottan infected by it. But that was long ago. I'm seeing BitTorrent exclusivly now. She's great But seriously, I only dl avi nowadays anyway and as far as I've seen there aren't many viruses/trojan on BT.

not if you use limewire basic to download limewire pro!!!

One has to be careful with the lenght of the file downloaded.
The short ones as 141,1kb are not the music file you want and they are generally adwares or may contain a virus.
Just be careful with the lenght of the file and not the name of it.
Be happy all ! :-))

i found it fairly easy to keep my machines clean, and i use 3 p2p programs an each of 2 computers. first, i set the program to scan every file downloaded with antivirus. second, i set the downloaded files folder in each application to the same folder. third, after the files are downloaded, the whole folder can be scanned with antivirus and spyware sweepers again without going all over the place to find them. i never open these files until after they are all scanned with several apps. if you want to know, i use norton antivirus and webroot spysweeper on one computer, and avg, norton spyware scanner, and windows defender(or whatever it's called now), on the other, and with the home network, the download folder can be scanned from either comp, or both. am i being too paranoid?? maybe, but after a couple years of p2p downloading i haven't been infected once because of it, and i couldn't even begin to count the infections that have been caught.
just my 2 cents.
ric.

Been file sharing in linux for years. not one virus

I have spent the 89cents many times and agree it is safer and often better quality. HOWEVER,
None of the songs I purchased will play on the new PC. Musicmatch has sent me pages of information on what steps I must take to play the songs. It was easier to go to Limewire and download them all over again.
A real pain to purchase this music then not be able to play it without going through a bunch of ********.

Old tape decks came with two heads so you could copy the media to another tape. Connect your PC to a satellite source and get all the digital music you want. It is sharing just as it is in Limewire.

I have been using LimeWire for the past couple of years. I paid a subscription fee last September and have been extremely happy with the results. However, I have never received a virus, trojan or spyware from P2P file sharing. I use good programs and common sense to avoid this. I have Norton Corporate (an older version with up to date definitions). AVG Free, Zone Alarm Pro and Windows Defender. I have paid for all but AVG Free and Windows Defender which was free from Microsoft. I also sit behind a router based firewall.

I also use something that isn't used a lot today, "Common Sense." If the file looks too good to be true...then it usually is. If you see a file that shows a size of lets just say 1,400kb and you know it should be at least a couple megs, why would you download it. If the file isn't exactly what you're searching for, it probably isn't a file you want. You have to know this is a scam of some sort whether it's a virus or spyware or whatever. Another one is when you do a search for a file and you get something that looks like or says porn, it isn't the file you're looking for or is a variation of it. Variations can be and often are not what they appear to be. Common sense can save you a lot of time and effort if you just use it.

When I first installed LimeWire, I set up a download directory for it. All files for download are within this directory. Every download, whether from LimeWire or any other source, is scanned before it is used. If the file is going to be allowed for uploading, it is moved to another folder which is the only folder allowed for uploading.

I believe that if we all do our part, this kind of malware can be, if not stopped, at least slowed down. It's up to each and every one of us to use common sense and good virus protection as well as good spyware protection to protect ourselves.

I have gotten trojans and the occasional backdoor from downloads. I stick strictly to torrents; some torrent search sites have areas for user comments and these are EXTREMELY helpful in finding bad torrents. As others have said, even if you're downloading legally there will be wild and malicious viruses out there, so always remember to scan often and thoroughly. BTW file size alone is not always the best indicator of a virus. Sure a 130k version of Adobe Photoshop.exe is a virus, but that same virus can hide in a 2.1Gb file.

Yes, I have received several Trojan horses. You don't have to execute a program/file. Once you discover that a certain program, movie or song is only 137kb, or 43kb, they are most likely viruses or Trojan horses.

long story short, I was new to Limewire. I downloaded a file, and without me knowing it installed a virus on my computer. I didn't tell there was sonething wrong on my computer for another couple of days. Programs ceased to work. Soon I couldn't even access my internet. I decided to run a scan with my anti-virus software (at least that still worked). I found over 5000 problems, and deleted em'. About a mon th later I still couldn't get rid of all the problems (trojans, bugs etc.) that that one virus gave me. Everytime I ran the scan that virus would show up, I tried directly going to the folder that contained the virus, deleting it didn't help. It was ALWAYS there. After 3 months, I gave up, and used the AWESOME restoration disk. Although ALL of my things were erased, Im free! lol. I've had many virus infections on my computer but nothing I couldn't solve or fix. This was the first, and the last.

I use Bit Defender AV and several anti spyware programs such as Webroot and SpyBot S&D. I download to a folder and then use the AV and Webroot to scan the folder from the context menu. I prefer the Eastern European AV apps since I believe that they are superior in spotting 'viruses in the wild'.

Also download from trusted sites such as Cnet,et al.

Had a Mac for a while now, and thats probably the reason I've gotten to viruses. Even on my Windows machine though I've had no problems. Although, all I've downloaded are music files and they ussally pretty safe.

althought I do sometimes download a movie to preview and see if I like it before wasting $20-$30 to buy it. and the same said for some software. I have found that if you have a good virus software like Avast and it is free. plus a internet/spyware cleaner program like Scrubxp also free your system will stay protected as these programs do raise the alarm bells as soon as they find a virus coming down to your computer and they also kill the contection straight away hence grab program killed. it should also be noted that a lot of hackers traget protection software written by firms like microsoft mainly cause you paid for it. do the right thing with file share download test or preview prgrams then pay for it if you intend to keep on using it