Thread: Virus
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Old October 11th, 2005
Only A Hobo Only A Hobo is offline
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Hi. This forum is frequented buy users of Limewire and might just occasionally be glanced at by the powers that be.

It is a well known fact, I hope, that connecting a computer to the internet, is a risky business and there are thousands of viruses out there. If you use Internet Explorer to visit internet sites and download things from them, there is a risk that these things will contain viruses. You should have anti-virus software on your computer to catch these before they infect your computer. If you do not, and your computer gets infected, if really cannot be said , (on this occasion at any rate) that Microsoft is to blame.

Limewire is an application that connects two computer users together over the Gnutella network, and what these people download and upload is up to them. Limewire has no influence over their choices and has no ability to vet what files are being exchanged. There is no central point through which files can be scanned for viruses or anything else. There is no "Download Source" as you put it!

There is considerably more risk of picking up a virus from a p2p network than there is from an internet web site, and so it is imperative that users of p2p applications use adequate virus protection. Regular readers of this forum know this. Anyone who had taken time to read the Limewire faqs will have read:-

"Q: Might I download a virus using LimeWire?

A: LimeWire does not keep any record of files being shared on the Gnutella Network, nor does it scan any files being uploaded or downloaded for viruses. Therefore, if you attempt to download a virus-infected file using LimeWire, you will be vulnerable to any viruses contained in that file. Generally speaking, you should be very careful when downloading files with a .exe or .vbs suffix, since these files are more likely than most to be viruses. LimeWire's Library will also not launch these files, so you can only run a file with a virus from outside LimeWire. (LimeWire's Library will not launch exe, vbs, lnk, bat, sys, or com files.) Scanning the files you download with some sort of virus-protection software is also a good idea."

and whilst the wording of this could be made more emphatic, the message is there.

Whilst I understand your feeling that Limewire has let you down, really, as you can see, the fault does not lie at Limewire's door. Every computer user with access to the internet MUST take every precaution to see that viruses do not get onto their computer.

If I've overlooked anything in your post, forgive me but the lack pf punctuation made it a hard read
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