Does downloading torrents give you viruses

In all three instances, we were successful. Therefore, we have to conclude that, as of now, Zooqle is accessible to, at least, a great portion of internet users.

Needless to say, we will check this regularly and keep you updated! LimeTorrents is very good for new releases. Mirrors: limetorrents. Not a torrent site per se, Torrends. Mirrors: None.

This website used to be called torrents. Website: Torrentdownloads website. Attention: This website attempts to open an additional browser tab with advertisements. Not harmful, but annoying. Asian titles specifically seem to take a big part of their servers. Mirrors: torrentdownloads. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly for many, private torrenting sites generally have significantly higher streaming speeds than public ones, because members have seeding quotas they need to comply with.

Last but not least, Bibliotik is the largest private torrenting site for downloading ebooks. We recommend uTorrent , but Bittorrent will work just as fine. Once you installed a torrent client, download the torrent from one of the best torrent sites in the list above, and open it using the client. If you already installed the client, the torrent file will automatically open in this screen:. First, always download torrents and browse torrent sites using a VPN.

Read our roundup of the best VPNs and use one of those before doing any torrenting. Avoid big buttons and only click on the URL that will actually download your desired torrent file. You risk downloading malware, viruses , and even losing your information to phishing campaigns, which are very common for torrent sites.

Again, check our best VPN section for the best options out there, safety tips, and news. After that, tick all the VPN safety settings you can. Make sure you enable connection encryption, leak protection, and a kill switch for when your network is at risk of getting infected. Most VPNs will feature these options maybe under different names.

The kill switch is important, as it will prevent your identity from being exposed when your VPN connection suddenly drops. Third, install an ad blocker and other safety-enhancing extensions.

You can read all about them in our article detailing the best browser extensions for safety and privacy , as well as our guide with 8 steps to stay safe online. A lot of countries have their own regional private torrent site, and they all seem impossible to get in. We took a deep dive into the world of private torrent sites, and we were able to obtain invitations for some of them. Reddit, 8chan, and specifically anonymity-focused forums have threads on torrenting.

You can even check out our list of the best free BitTorrent websites that can be used to download video games, movies, music , TV shows, anime , and e-books at a high-speed. Once you have landed on a torrent tracker website of your choice, simply search for the desired torrent file.

From the generated search result, download the. A high number of seeders will not only increase the download speed, but it will also ensure that the data is not fake or infected with a virus. The last advice that we would like to give to our readers is to go through the comments section of the torrent file that you want to download.

Generally, seeders report about fake or broken files in the comments section. Moreover, seeders also share information about the quality of video torrent files in the comments. Lastly, you have to open the downloaded. Since hackers generally embed viruses in torrents its essential to scan every file that you download for viruses. If you have downloaded the small-sized. On the other hand, a magnet link will offer a direct line and connect the downloader to each file.

Once the file is downloaded, you will start to seed. We advise our readers to continue seeding for quite some time to help the torrenting community. As you might have known by now, torrenting is one of the most preferred methods for piracy.

EZTV has a clunky interface , a rather ugly design, and their ads can get pretty annoying. On top of that, it has a pretty low download speed. Website: Zoogle website. Zooqle might not seem like much. Not to mention, the many ads it has can get annoying at times. Even so, it has a few things going for it. First, Zooqle has a wonderful collection of video game torrents , both for consoles and PC.

Second, it has an active community that keeps updating its library. Website: Torrentz2 website. The website often experiences downtime , is hard to navigate, and is riddled with ads. So why include it in our list? We included it for its music library. Other than that, the general advice is to steer clear. Website: Torrentdownloads website. Attention: This torrent site will occasionally open an extra browser tab with advertisements.

The people that still use it, tend to be looking for obscure books, software, or Asian content. Its library seems to do well in those categories. Mirrors: torrentdownloads. Website: Torrends website. Rather, Torrends. This platform is a good choice for people who constantly find themselves checking multiple sites for their torrenting needs.

This is reason enough for many regular downloaders to keep it in mind as a Pirate Bay alternative. Mirrors: None.

This website used to be called torrents. Website: LimeTorrents website. LimeTorrents is an excellent choice for finding new releases. It has just under 20 million users a month across all mirrors and offers plenty of search options. Mirrors: limetorrents. Website : Kickass Torrents website. Kickass Torrents has been around since the s and was once the most popular torrenting site on the internet.

While the alleged owner was arrested in — and seven domains connected to Kickass were seized by US authorities — moderators and torrenting enthusiasts have created copycat sites. The library is extensive, and seeders are plentiful for newer releases. Download speeds are pretty standard. Therefore, this once very popular website ended at the bottom of our list. Although it is an alternative to The Pirate Bay, we recommend not using it and choosing one of the other options on this list instead.

Another option that people looking for alternatives to The Pirate Bay often consider are private torrenting websites. These sites work the same way as a regular torrenting website, only users need a username and a password to log in. Since the AutoHotkey language provides the ability to monitor keystrokes and mouse movements, it is often detected by heuristic virus scanners incorrectly as a keylogger or trojan—because those are the same type of internal Windows functions that a trojan might take advantage of to steal your password.

This doesn't mean that the file necessarily has a virus. The great thing about most AutoHotkey applications that we link to is that the source code is usually provided, so you can just open up the. In fact, if you have AutoHotkey installed, you can run any. You'd be surprised to find out just how easy it is to get in touch with some developers. People email us all the time asking about the false-positive AutoHotkey apps we host on the site, and we do our best to reply.

Other developers—who aren't also sorting through hundreds of other tips emails every day—are probably even easier to get a hold of, and if they're legit, they care a great deal about what antivirus apps are saying about their software and will do whatever it takes to help.

Again, you shouldn't necessarily trust everything said developer has to say, but if a developer is easy to contact, chances are they're making legit apps. It's the developers who are impossible to get a hold of because it's in their best interest not to be found that are a little more worrisome. If your antivirus software is telling you that a file contains a virus, you shouldn't blindly assume that you're dealing with a false positive; use that opportunity to ask yourself if you really need to install that application.

If you do, make sure to check with VirusTotal first, make sure the download is from a reputable place, and then make that judgment call on your own.