I don't know who that is, but I generaly encourage new pirates to download things that have comments so you can see whther it works, doesn't work, or it's a bad actor.

In rhis case I just wouldn't download at all due to the lack of comments. But if it's the only option you have, you can always try to download through a VM and check virustotal beforehand.

[–] Makeshift@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

unfortunately this is pretty niche software so it's hard to tell either way. A number of his other uploads have comments however.

What about downloading the torrent and testing it using a clean throwaway Windows install on a separate drive? And afterwards running a few different virus scans and check the task scheduler etc to see if there are any suspicious changes. Does this sound like a good strategy? Is there anything I should look out for in particular?

[–] imkmiaw@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there anything I should look out for in particular?

Not really, I mean, let me explain to you my process to see if that helps

First of all I have 3 backups... 1 in cloud, 1 in secondary ssd, 1 in external ssd. When I download something from a source that I'm not sure about specifically in 1337x I:

Check the comments first, if there are a majority of people complaining then I don't download
If there are no comments, I check the profile of the uploader and check comments on other uploads. Seeing this guys' other uploads it seems that his content is ok and there is no need to worry about it.
Just in case, or if I'm still not sure, I run it through virustotal.
If I'm STILL not sure, I just use a VM and install it on the VM. If something happens I just delete everything and my computer is fine. And even if somrthing happens I'm prepared to do a clean install without worrying about my files.

I'm not sure and someone can correct me please if I'm wrong, but if the drive is installed in the same computer it doesn't make a big difference. VM is always better imo.

[–] histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

unless your disconnecting your main drive vm is better yes still not full proof but better