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

I never had a virus or a trojan in 8 years of using until I downloaded the new explorer 7 last week. suddenly the comp went wacky and got very slow. It easily got thru my zone alrm security suite firewall, even they cant figure that one out./ I called a repairman to the house and he said he was uninstalling the explorer 7 and going back to exp 6 because explorer 7 has too many bugs in it and he said lots are having the same problem. He took it out from the control box. My exp 6 reurned automatically. Then he did a scan with my zone alarm, and they found all of them. But yet with exp 7, it could not. In fact I use other programs for spyware and none caught it till I went back to 6. Stay away from exp 7. I hated it anyway.

Once. I was too naive. I downloaded an executable for PC Halo 2 (of course it still isn't out, and this was two years ago) and promptly got a trojan. But that was the only problem I had with P2P programs. And it was LimeWire. BitComet is safer and has never given me headaches.

With a file downloaded, i can say whether it is or not spyware, ad ware or a vius, as i use spy bot,ad ware ( its never found real ad ware infection), windows defender for safe balance and at the front of all this is bullguard, a underrated great program, that stops a virus in its steps, so when it finds somthing, i have no worry.

Yes, I did get a nasty virus that came from using Limewire.I should say that Limewire doesn't have the viruses etc. but some people that post their files to be shared on Limewire certainly do.I had to start my comp. in safe mode and run Mcafee from there to get rid of the virus I got from someone that enjoys sharing more than music. I still download music from Limewire on occasion,and you can set up your downloads to warn you if the music is copyright protected. Thats done when you install Limewire,and also set the configurations to only allow sharing of your music files.[If you don't share,you can't download.]Last but perhaps most important, I always return to my security program and BLOCK Limewire from any and all I-net connection with my comp.Even safer- uninstall Limewire when you have your music in your player.Hope this helps Brandy and all other curious folks who have ques.about LIMEWIRE.As you have stated,P2P sharing isn't illegal unless it's copywrited material. RodneyG

Anti-virus software and a cautious approach, simple as.

I used Limewire,Kaaza and Bearshare. And all of them had some corrupt
files with viruses. The rule of thumb is to save them on a secondary
hard drive and scanning them before opening.
I opted to get out of these programs completely because you never
know what you are getting and there is always that risk hovering in your mind.

Rob Lamens

Never. I'm a mac-user.

i used limewire,and yes i got viruses,so needless to say i uninstalled lime wire and have not put it back. i can do without it
the virus and trojans are a bigger problem than the value of using p2p programmes. while talking about viruses, etc. i also use webroot spysweeper and anti virus program. webroot will not , and do not respond to users emails about problems in their system . have a trojan in spy sweeper .exe.and still webroot will not respond. i had to remove spy sweeper programme from computer i used avast to find the trojan.so again i am not impressed with webroot. maybe this posting will get them off their ass and respond

I personally had a problem with LimeWire. They charged me for a lifetime membership, yet 4 months later, I was unable to sign in and they could not find my membership info. They got their money and I got shafted. They are dangerous and a major ripoff.
Also, I have cleaned out two systems for friends that were using LimeWire. It took me about 60 minutes to gain control of the system. I finally got into msconfig and cancelled everything at startup but the antivirus program. After two or three tries, it finally worked and I cleaned 200+ malware, viruses, worms and trojan horses out of the systems.

Had all of the above using shareware in the past. We use Webroot SpySweeper to find, quarantine and delete the bad files.

This is my first responce to a CNET article for discussion and I felt complelled to tell you about my experience.

I orginally signed up for a P2P as an alternative to having my daughters purchase songs from Walmart, not really knowing what it was all about, especially the legallity or illegallity of it. I paid a $30 fee for what I thought was unlimited downloads of music. Too good to be true, right? Yes it was.

I later found out that the $30 fee I had paid was really for an "upgraded" version of the tool that I downloaded from the P2P site and not for the music. Maybe I'm not too smart but I felt like I had been set up. I really thought I was paying for music.

Further, Unbeknownst to me, I was not only downloading music but much more. I started to notice unusual pop-ups, emails and all sorts of strange things showing up. I surmised that in the packets I was downloading there could be just about anything stuck inside. And then I started to wonder what I wasn't seeing. I could not think of anything I had done out of the ordinary except the download of the P2P.

After doing more research, I learned more about P2P and chose to discontinue use. I now understand why the recording industry would be up in arms about this P2P racket. And I certainly don't need the added hassle of trojans and viruses packaged with my music.

Thanks for listening,

Doug

P.S. A lot of the stuff we downloaded wasn't very good quality. Some movies and music had obviously been poorly recorded. One movie had been copied with a video camera in a theater.

All the files I have downloaded are clean of viruses and other malware. Many software(not music) files have different names(like "AVG Pro 7.5" or "AVG Professional 7.5"), but they are the same size of file (most 228kb .exe files or 750 .rar files are malware). There are more, but that's how I mainly avoid malware using P2P apps.

now I am smart and I don`t use programs like limewire (full of spyware). I only use OPEN SOURCE programs like shareaza and use a good free anti-virus like avast from trusted sites like CNET. set your video to thumbnail and you can see if file is real. for applications and executables use winrar or something like that to open and check program files. I have over 600 GB of software, games, programs all shared all free including my os. pc is running 24/7 and downloading, haven`t had virus in years. all backed up as well. to the guy that said spend the 98 cents for the song, I`v spent thousands over the years on albums(the big black disks), tapes, cd`s dvd`s. mp3 and mp4 sound like crap unless on tiny earbuds so I will still buy music. otherwise they can`t have my money. what about the 10,000 dollar cad cam software I just installed today? who can afford that to use for fun? If I lend you a book and you read it and give it back, do you owe the publisher/author? I say no. I will never stop file sharing p2p. HACK THE WORLD, I DON`T INSTALL GAMES I PLAY THEM

GLENZWORLD