[colecampbell666]

Can you get a virus from simply extracting a .RAR or by playing a torrented movie? I've heard of some (most?) of the tricks for hiding viruses, like trying to get you to download fake codecs and extractors, extra file extensions etc.

Anything else I should be aware of?

[achtung]

By extracting a non self-extracting .rar file I doubt you could get anything.

[colecampbell666]

I figured that as the operation is basically self-contained.

[Polpolion]

Yes. Here's what I do to counter that I get a portable torrent client, put it on a usb drive, take it to school, and download and use it first there. It'll take a lot longer, but you sure won't get any viruses that you'll have to worry for longer than an hour.

[colecampbell666]

That's what I do with movies, only slightly different. Our school prohibits "bad" (any) applications  (even Internet Exploder in some cases - I kid you not), so I just run the file itself at school and/or using Linux.

I sorta had some revelation or whatever, cause all of a sudden I realized that:

The portable HDD (250 GB) I've had empty since Christmas + 60 GB of movies/shows + ?????? = Profit.

I've got 60 GB of data downloading, at 190 kb/s. Fun.

[Polpolion]

190 kb/s

That's awesome for torrenting stuff. Heck, 80 kb/s is awesome.

[colecampbell666]

It's actually closer to 100 normally, I get 190 on the latest shows (SGA) and I was getting around 240 last night with 700 peaks - something I didn't believe possible. And while I agree that 190 is pretty good, I will repeat: 60 GB, and say that Turey theoretically gets 4 MB/second on his 30 megabit connection.

[Polpolion]

If it's too big, don't download it. Otherwise stop complaining.

[colecampbell666]

I'm not complaining.

[FS2_playa613]

I kid you not, when i torrented Deus Ex after my game disc broke, i got a download rate of 680-720 kb/s. lol had the game which is well over a gig, in like 15 mintutes.  Ah the joys of having a LOT of seeds

[Hellstryker]

I torrented the 300 at 500 kbps... the WHOLE TIME 

[Corsair]

http://www.hulu.com/


why download?

[Rictor]

Torrents are usually pretty safe, at least from the major trackers. Unless you see a serious filesize disparity, in which case use caution..

[Hellstryker]

Never use mininova or isohunt... unless you have a really good anti virus... TPB is usually ok. and demonoid will be if it ever comes back :\

[colecampbell666]

http://www.hulu.com/
why download?

Just heard about that on the radio coming home.

Never use mininova or isohunt... unless you have a really good anti virus... TPB is usually ok. and demonoid will be if it ever comes back :\

Oops.

[Flaser]

Never use mininova or isohunt... unless you have a really good anti virus... TPB is usually ok. and demonoid will be if it ever comes back :\

Ignore idiots oblivious people who confuse being secure with the feeling of security they get from a familiar environment. One can only earn real security the hard way - teaching themselves about the dangers, and through self-discipline ingraining the appropriate habits.

Both of those trackers are fine. They are open though, so you have to filter whatever you download yourself. Naturally any torrent of a film shouldn't have a huge executable inside, neither should a film be packed in an archive as an mkv or avi (or mp4) file compresses really poorly.

[colecampbell666]

Never use mininova or isohunt... unless you have a really good anti virus... TPB is usually ok. and demonoid will be if it ever comes back :\

Ignore idiots oblivious people who confuse being secure with the feeling of security they get from a familiar environment. One can only earn real security the hard way - teaching themselves about the dangers, and through self-discipline ingraining the appropriate habits.

Both of those trackers are fine. They are open though, so you have to filter whatever you download yourself. Naturally any torrent of a film shouldn't have a huge executable inside, neither should a film be packed in an archive as an mkv or avi (or mp4) file compresses really poorly.

I figured that. I've generally already had to learn the hard way. I've never had a virus from a torrent, as I usually inspect what I download carefully. I haven't found that one site or the other is better, although I like ISOHunt because it scans for trackers from a whole bunch of other sites, improving share ratios. And as a bonus, it's Canadian.

[colecampbell666]

Little update: It seems that an update from M$ breaks torrenting as it disallows it in Windoze Firewall. I've had a few friends say this as well.

[IPAndrews]

Delete the rule?

[Hellstryker]

Never use mininova or isohunt... unless you have a really good anti virus... TPB is usually ok. and demonoid will be if it ever comes back :\

Ignore idiots oblivious people who confuse being secure with the feeling of security they get from a familiar environment. One can only earn real security the hard way - teaching themselves about the dangers, and through self-discipline ingraining the appropriate habits.

Both of those trackers are fine. They are open though, so you have to filter whatever you download yourself. Naturally any torrent of a film shouldn't have a huge executable inside, neither should a film be packed in an archive as an mkv or avi (or mp4) file compresses really poorly.

I figured that. I've generally already had to learn the hard way. I've never had a virus from a torrent, as I usually inspect what I download carefully. I haven't found that one site or the other is better, although I like ISOHunt because it scans for trackers from a whole bunch of other sites, improving share ratios. And as a bonus, it's Canadian.

Well you see, i did this because i didn't WANT you to have to learn the hard way like i did