Safe Software Download Sites

You know lately it seems like the biggest security threats are from free download sites which try harder and harder to stick the user with free services and toolbars, none of which are not only not useful, but actually are quite the opposite and more often than not help enable today's Malware threats to invade systems.

The safest thing a user can do is try to see wherever possible if what they are trying to download is in the address of the site i.e. Adobe Reader would be best had from www.adobe.com but if not available then "Major Geeks" or "File Hippo" are about the only safe places to download from and we must makes sure we are downloading what we mean to download so go slowly and carefully and read everything thoroughly before clicking on anything. Anyone who knows any other safe sites to download from please join in here.

About six months ago in an attempt to test the natural defenses of Windows 8, and struggling to find infected sites I visited a lot of the poisonous download sites and paid no attention to what I was downloading and within about 10 minutes I had almost known variant of recent Malware infections roaming my computer and it struck me how easy it was to lose attention to what I was doing and get buried by every known Malware variant of the day, simply by trying to do simple everyday tasks at these sites.

 

This subject does need to be pushed hard, and with outside help might even get some legislation in place against these sometimes dangerous bundled downloads.
In the mean time, as you say Rich, be careful, read fully every window that pops up and wherever a choice of automatic/default or manual/advanced, choose the latter as it is then that you are shown the junk and can remove ticks, or even in some rare cases, put in a tick to prevent unwanted rubbish being installed.
Just be ultra cautious and read everything and you may be OK, though it is no guarantee even then from some download sites.