What's in a P2P download?

Recognise dangerous files & fake content

If you 'P2P download' with any regularity then you may run a risk of exposing your computer to a virus or other form of malware.

Important as it is to have anti virus/spyware tools installed on your machine, no protection is 100% guaranteed and eventually something may get through. The best way is to be able to recognise these dubious files, and avoid downloading them in the first place before they have the chance to do any harm.

Not all ‘dubious files’ are dangerous though, and many will simply be 'fake files', which usually just contain corrupted data, or advertising.

To begin with, we'll take a look at how the size of a P2P download can be a dead give away when it comes to spotting the files you should avoid. Then check out the 'File extensions' sections (Parts 1 & 2) to make sure you know exactly which files are safe to download. But more on that later.

File size

By far the easiest and most apparent way to recognise a fake file is its size. If you run a search for a music track or piece of video, and the results contain files that are abnormally small for this media (e.g. less than 1Megabyte), then there is a good chance that they will contain a virus or worm.

Download one of these and your anti-virus software should alert you, no big drama. But what if the virus is brand new or for whatever reason, undetected? It simply isn’t worth the risk, and much better to ignore any search result or potential P2P download below a certain size. 1MB (Megabyte) is about right, but it’s up to you.

With a music track, size is directly related to quality, and the minimum quality you should be looking at (for an MP3) is a bitrate of 128 kb/s (Kilobits per second). To determine how big the file should be, a good rule of thumb at this bitrate is around 1MB per minute, so therefore a 3 minute track should be approximately 3MB in size.

Software however, could be any size so you will have to do some additional research and use your judgment, to make sure you're getting the right thing.

Approximate file sizes for common downloads

Next, check out which file extensions are typically safe to 'P2P download', and which ones you should avoid at all costs.

Become an expert downloader with the step-by-step tutorials and more in
'The Essential Guide to Downloading'

What's in a P2P download (Top)