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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • Everyone else, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

    I’m a very casual downloader. I rarely download and it’s usually older content like movies or retro games. But my personal method has been do a ton of reading. Find chatrooms, forums, etc, where people discuss this topic and read up on the various sites and people’s experiences with them.

    Have a separate device if possible. One you’re willing to wipe if something went wrong. I’ve also heard of people sandboxing downloads to try and keep things safer, but I’ve never personally tried it. My assumption is that the older and less complex a download is, the better, but that could be pure ignorance on my part.

    For example, if I’m grabbing a GBA game, it’s one single file. There’s less to visually scan, and it’s easy to see if there’s something that looks off. This isn’t always the case, though. For example, one .exe file could ruin your entire machine.

    Something newer like a more modern PC game release, I would pick it from a list of sources that people claim are safe, and then basically hope and pray that I didn’t just infect my machine lol. At that point, I try to also look for any suspicious behavior, or if i notice any kind of slowdown, issues with the machine, etc.

    Generally speaking, anytime I’ve infected my machine (that I know of), whatever virus protection I’ve been running has caught it and prevented issues. But generally speaking, I would assume that unless you’re downloading simple stuff, you’re taking some risk.









  • I don’t really see an issue either way. I think we all try to justify piracy in our own ways, and ultimately, people either take a black and white stance or some shade of grey.

    In my personal opinion, I try not to pirate things from small creators. When I do pirate, I usually end up supporting them in some other way, shape, or form.

    Educational material I think should be free or very cheap. Education should be available to everyone regardless of their social or economic status. Those textbooks that those publishing companies charge hundreds of dollars for are a prime example. The companies are leeches.