novice in the house
 

Hi, I'm Jane from NYC "the big apple". I recently downloaded the free version of lime wire and I've used it @ my place of business.

I've always downloaded music without the padlock icon. Is this a problem? The music that i've asked for never came up with the padlock so I thought it would be safe. Can some one help me and let me know what safe or not.

Thanks

The orange warning banner with the padlock was added because there's a bogus LW update showing up in search results. It's a 75.7 KB .exe & shows up as "Urgent LW update - download & install now". If people download that thing they could end up infected. To try to prevent careless people from downloading a dangerous file, the warning banner was added to LW's interface.

The padlock symbol doesn't apply to music or video etc, only to LW updates.

All downloaded files should be scanned with a good, up to date, AV program before being opened. There are many infected files being shared on the network.

If you're using LW from work, you need to check with whoever's in charge of the office internet & see whether it's ok to use p2p with the work computer.
Many employers have a (justified) 'no p2p' policy, because of the possibility of sensitive files being unwittingly shared & the possibility of downloading infected files. You really should check that out.

Thanks so much for the info. I'll definately do that.

One other thing, Can you get into legal trouble for downloading music? and if so how to prevent that from happening?

Yes you can, if it's illegal to download copyrighted material in your country. Living in NYC, I'd have thought you'd be aware of that. Use Google to search for your local laws regarding downloading of copyrighted material.

how do u scan the files before downloading them?

You can't scan before you DL the file. You have to DL and then scan before you open it.

This is really going to sound like i'm out to lunch. But how do i do the scanning?

Yes, this is all new to me i'm not computer literate at all.

It may depend on what anti-virus program you have. I have AVG antivirus (it's free)...I can right-click a file and choose 'scan for viruses'.

If you don't have this option, perhaps open your antivirus interface and see if there is a way to scan single files (or single folders, at least).

Hope this helps :D

Dan

What anti virus program are you using? If it;s not AVG, someone else may use it and be able to help you with it.