Dark Lord of Tech :
P2P and torrent sites are virus farms.
This is what I would call a faulty syllogism; but, more importantly, this is a massive misconception that needs to die... if you do your research, and you download from trusted sources/websites, you will
not have any problems. Also, the most trusted websites will have dedicated members who actively search the hosted torrents for bad files (malware/viruses/etc.), and then report them for immediate removal. If you read the comments of a torrent, and there is a claim of it being "infected," with no response negating that statement, then steer clear... otherwise, ask for a VirusTotal report, and wait on downloading until you see some convincing evidence.
As a torrenter who's been at it for nearly a decade, I've downloaded a large amount of shady torrents. Want to know how many of them had genuine infections? Zero. Why? I was smart about what I chose to download, and scanned things I wasn't sure about before installing them. I also avoided infections that came from just browsing their websites by simply using the proper tools to block ads/scripts from running, thereby circumventing vulnerabilities before they could be exploited. Proper browsing methods will always keep you protected from common website viruses that use basic scripts/ads.
i go to alot of p2p and torrent sites and download a lot of good software that is supposed to be malware free. ok it does have tracking cookies but that is not really malware. i believe tracking cookies are needed to keep the link going between my connection and the website that i am connected to. i may be wrong about that. most of my malware is found after i open software that i had downloaded and my antivirus/antimalware never detected a thing. it only found it when a scan was run later. it seems that some malware can only be detected after software is opened and run. that is what i have found. it seems to find its way into your system through any software download. games and music seems to be the worst also coupon sites.
poorguy
yes I agree p2p and torrent sites can be bad if one is not careful about what they download. so far my free antivirus/antimalware has kept me safe and has not let anything bad infect my system. lots of good software on those sites but yes you must be super careful and be willing to take some risk. I do a lot of research before I download from those sites.
poorguy
Depending on what your AV is catching, it may be a false alarm. If you are using cracked software, it may be throwing a red flag because of how it bypasses the DRM. If it throws a red flag while playing a video/music file, then that would be much more straight forward. If you look at AV-Comparative's latest False Alarm report, you will see it state, "Even “not significant” [False Positives] (or FPs on old applications) deserve mention and attention because FPs are likely to be a result of principled rule detections. It just happened that the FP was on an insignificant file. The FP possibility is probably still in the product and could cause an FP again on a more significant file. Thus, they still deserve mention and still deserve to be penalised." With that said, the report does list 9 FPs from AVG, and practically all of them raised my eyebrows when reading it. Depending on their rule set, your "malware" could simply be false positives. Have you thoroughly checked out the infected files that were flagged? Did your software run after you removed the infected files? Was the infected file a software crack, or was it an extra file that was installed with no relation to the actual software?
If you want to send me links to the torrents, I'd be happy to take a look at what they have, and see if I can find the same things you have had flagged on your system. Also, I'm curious what kind of "research" you are doing, what websites you download from, etc.. You can always PM me, if you'd prefer, too.
Dark Lord of Tech :
There will always be some form of malicious ads on the net.
Nothing can block everything.
Yes, and no. If you block the ad/malicious script from ever running, then you
can block the infection. If the infection is based on something that isn't blockable in the browser (which I'm currently unaware of), then you'd be correct; however, I'm not aware of any malicious infections that are actually using any 'back doors', so to speak, to deliver the payload. If you know of some, I'd definitely like to see what's written up, and if there's been a riot in the hacker community over it. I miss some of this stuff kind of often!
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