question about torrent

[vsoy]

I'm totally new to the whole bit torrent scene. I've only downloaded one music album so far, but I'm wondering if I should be more wary of sites where I download files. I imagine some unscrupulous people could put viruses or malware on their sites? I've got antivirus and spyware, but I'd rather just avoid bad sites. Is there anything I should be looking for or just go with "brand" name sites?

[evil_FUX]

It is possible that some sites might be virus ridden. I mean that's how most warez sites are. But the "major" torrent sites should be ok. e.g. Pirate Bay, Mininova, Meganova. Go to torrentz.com to search for stuff, they usually crawl the "major" torrent sites.

[nskripchun]

I <3 BitTorrent... if it wasn't for BT, I would have been able to find so many Asian movies, music, and TV shows.

But yeah, you should be careful what sites you frequent. I usually stick to the major ones that FUX mentioned like mininova.org or torrentspy.com...

Another good practice is read people's comments before downloading the torrent. In the case of movies & TV shows, people sometimes might save you the trouble of downloading if they've already done so and found malware, bad quality video, audio that doesn't sync, sites for subtitles, etc.

Happy torrent hunting!

[Vahz]

It's simple. Never download critical software such as utility, OS, or antivirus programs unless it's an ISO rip.

Everything else is fine such as movies/music/shows.

[evil_FUX]

Just caught this, looks like torrentspy is out of the picture:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/09/1253234&from=rss

PC Guy writes "TorrentSpy, one of the world's largest BitTorrent sites, has been ordered by a federal judge to monitor its users (http://torrentfreak.com/torrentspy-ordered-to-spy-on-its-users-on-behalf-of-the-mpaa/). They are asked to keep detailed logs of their activities which must then be handed over to the MPAA. Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy's attorney responded to the news by stating: 'It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users. If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise."