Many of you know that I always warn of the dangers associated with “free” music through such programs as LimeWire, FrostWire, Bit-Torrent, etc. My warning has always been that you never know what you getting when you are downloading movies or music though these services.

The way these programs work is that you are connecting to another persons computer to download their copy of a song/movie. The danger is that you don’t know if that person’s computer is infected or not and you could be downloading a virus without knowing it. Even if you pay for the premium version of LimeWire you are still getting your files the same way and there is still no assurance that the files are safe

But I have an Anti-Virus, aren’t I safe? Unfortunately no. The people who these write the viruses are very clever and they can actually insert code into a song that carries another program with it which is not a virus. This program, referred to as a “trojan downloader”, can then go out and download other programs onto your computer without you knowing it. These programs are not necessarily viruses, but instead programs that spy on your web viewing thus targeting you for advertising, or even stealing passwords. By all means run a good anti-virus program (I recommend Mircosoft Security Essentials) which will catch some true viruses or poorly written virus attempts.

The reason I bring this up again is that just this week I worked on a computer that had one of trojan downloaders embedded right into an AC/DC song. Once that song was played it ran the program which included shutting off all anti-virus programs.

The safest thing to do is not download “free” music because it’s not always free – there is always a catch. If you want music go to iTunes and pay the artist.