I recently downloaded limewire, a file sharing site for music, etc. Can anyone tell me whether this is legal and safe? Right after installation I ran ad aware and spybot and nothing showed up. Just seems to be too easy to be true, thanks.

Legal, yes..... until you get nabbed by the RIAA. But they're not after small guys yet. They're going after the ones uploading hundreds and hundreds of songs. If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about getting nabbed.

Now, the second part of your question... is it safe. NO ! I often think of the mess my nephew got into. he unknowingly allowed or downloaded numerous spywares and viri. He had a nightmare to try and cleanse the computer. he was finally successful, but it took him quite some time. So I guesss the saying goes..."use at your own risk".

Legality obviously depends on where you are in the world

Any time you are introducing new, untested files to your system (uploaded by god-knows-who), you are at risk

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal

instead of limewire, I would use frostwire....same thing except no nag screens.

Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

Well this goes without saying, if you are attempting to or already doing something that you have to ask about its legality, common man, you DAMN WELL KNOW it ain't.

Make sure all the necessary security precautions are in place and do not share copyrighted materials, but then again, if you aren't sharing why the heck are you trying download from somebody else.

Goodluck.

I repaired a pc that had limewire on it.
I used ewido to remove over 20,000 files that were infected. they had the names of songs and popular programs. but in reality they were just a trojan/worm/virus in disguise. the files were in the limewire shared folder. this infected pc also was protected by antivirus ,that was neuterd by the virus. it was also acting as a spambot. so be careful what you download it may be more than you bargained for...

Thanks for all the input. I wasnt really worried about the legality. I had the few songs I wanted so I uninstalled it and went to search and hopefully deleted all the loose ends. Thanks again.

um i downloaded lime wire and have found that if u download anything BUT music ure going to get a virus, if you do download something other than music make sure u go into the c:\documents and settings\owner\shared... file and right click hit scan before u think about opening it, this is where all my above on the forum probs are stemming from, i wouldnt suggest the software to anyone anymore though unless just music is involved LOL

Kitty

Hmmmm, the virus thing I don't understand. I use avast and it IMMEDIATELY gives me a virus warning when I accidently d/l an infected file.

Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks