Not everything shared over P2P networks is piracy. In fact, much of the content delivery on the web is done with private torrents which allow companies to share large files between their different distribution nodes evenly. Spotify uses a peer-to-peer network along with streaming servers to stream music to its desktop music player. Peercasting networks such as FreeCast and Rawflow depend upon P2P networks to ensure the fastest possible delivery of their streaming media to listeners worldwide.
If you've ever used the free, legal, and open source Linux based OS Ubuntu, you know downloading the whole OS via direct download takes quite a while the torrent link allows you to download the entire file in as little as 10 minutes. So why would we write about torrents?
Much of Nerds Limited's repair work involves removing our client's precious data from computers crawling with viruses. Some of which infected our client's systems because the systems had been used to download torrents (legal or otherwise) without proper discretion. This article is intended to give users, both Windows and Mac a few tips about torrent selection and proper torrent protection.
WINDOWS 7
Windows users who download all of their system updates and use a good free or premium Anti-Virus application (MS Security Essentials, and ESET's NOD32 respectively) aren't nearly as prone to infection as they were in the past. In order for a virus to infect your system, it needs to fool you in to installing it. This can be done in any number of ways, the most common of which with torrents is hiding in an archive file such as .Zip or .Rar. If you find yourself downloading a torrent whose files are compressed, stop immediately and delete the file. It may contain malware.