The source was open for anyone last I recalled. So if anyone would like to check it out, be my guest.

The only content available directly through the Vuze interface (guessing that's what you mean) is either free license material or material uploaded with the copyright owner's blessings, so even if you have to sign up for it, it is perfectly safe.

Haven't tried it personally, since I get my content elsewhere. Actually I disabled anything Vuze in Vuze. There is a version 4 now, where you can choose to not load anything Vuze at all. I'm just waiting for all the sites where I am a member to allow it before upgrading. It is said to have a smaller memory footprint than all previous versions of Vuze/Azureus.

I have zero tolerance for these crap antivirus package vendors, that make up threats just to keep the customer happy. How happy would most people feel paying for something that does nothing. Not a single (fake) alert all year on their subscription. Seriously one of those major vendor even blocked one of my favorite sites for weeks, calling it a virus threat. If not for massive amounts of complaints it would probably still be in their database, filed under malicious sites.