Is Kazaa Safe?

[thameen]

Dear Forum Members

I want to use a P2P file sharing program. I have been hearing that file sharing programs are a source of spywares. Are there any safe ones? Is Kazaa safe?

Thank you

Thameen

[tashi]

Hello thameen.

This topic may help you in making a decision: File Sharing, otherwise known as Peer To Peer. (P2P)

[katana]

Apart from the legal aspect that Tashi points out, the fact is NO P2P program, even if it is free of malware in itself, will tell you if the file you are trying to download is infected.
So to answer your question truthfully there are no safe ones, only ones that do not come packaged with spyware !

[PepiMK]

Kazaa was a great source to find new adware & spyware to add to the detections in the early days of Spybot-S&D, each version brought something new each month :D


What you can see when you visit their site is that they still bundle a bunch of things.

For safety in general, heed what tashi and katana said.

[BloodyIron]

I remove ON SIGHT Kazaa from any computer I touch. It is the worst source of any malware I have ever seen. Granted it is not the program itself, but there are so many people on the P2P network infected, and spreading infected files it is not worth the hastle. It is far safer to use a torrent mechanism, as such torrents with virii are either reported or removed for having infected files; wheras this isnt possible with a P2P network.

I reiterate my distaste for Kazaa. I direct everyone I know to stay as far as they can away from any form of Kazaa, and if I ever work on a system that has Kazaa installed, I promptly remove it and go into a paranoid state in which I scan it repeatedly for virii and other malware.

STAY AWAY.

[stacked_deck]

yea kazaa sucks even the purchased version still bundles crap, my buddy used to have it....it was a huge performance hog....(when it worked)

check out www.merijn.org i believe is the location, there are a few p2p reviewed programs....and descriptions of p2p programs that have been tested and do not bundle crap into the installation...but none the less they can still be very harmful. it only takes one wrong file download and you're screwed.

[stacked_deck]

nevermind the reviews are not at merijn, but any ways merijn shows how to delete useless crap paired with kazaa, but that still does not make it any safer.....and i think it was probably slashdot that had the p2p reviews.

[katana]

Malware Removal has the list of good/bad P2P programs