You guys may already know how to tell viruses from real files, but for the new people here, i will explain. Ok lets first clear something up, VIRUSES CAN ONLY BE DOWNLOADED UNDER PROGRAMS, that is most important, and obvious (also, if you search from "all types" it obviously can be found there too). So now we can get into how to identify a virus. Its very simple, if a program file that you see is between 100kb and 1mb, its very likeley that its a virus. 1 way to easily filter out viruses is too set the bigger files to be on top. To do this, look at the top of the search window where it says quality, #, name, type, etc. You will see where is has "Size". Click that until you see a little triangle facing down. (that means the big part of the triangle on top, and the point facing down) that will make it so the bigger files are on top. now you might notice that there are a lot of different files that are the exact same size, typically 851.7, that is like the evil number of limewire. NEVER download a file that is of that size, now, if you see that there is a file named "keygen" or with "keygen" in it, they usually tend to be a less file size. but i wouldnt download a keygen file unless it is under 100 kb. ! last way to see if something is a virus, is if you look inside the folder, and see a regular setup icon, and the file name is just "setup" if you come across that, chances are that it might be a virus. Ok, by now you should know how to know what is a virus, if not just post below. Note, if you are suspicious of file, it never hurts to scan it with antivirus software.

Now that you know how to distinguish a virus from a regular file, i will tell you what happens if you happen to download a virus. (which i accidentally did) you probably wonder why there are so many viruses. well here is why. there is a virus, i think it is call "w32sillyp2p", and it basically creates hundreds of itself, with different names, into your shared folder. some names might be "adobe photoshop cs2 crack" or a program name. once its in your shared folder, then it is uploaded into limewire, where someone might think that its a regular file. then guess what, the same thing happens to them. and before you know it, there are thousands of viruses in limewire. that is why it is so important to know which is a virus and which is not. oh yea, if you get that virus: first, you need to hit ctrl+alt+delete. then go to the processess tab, and look for the one that says something like "w32" or with that name in it. then your hard drive will stop making that grinding/"thinking" noise. then you need to run a virus sweep on the shared folder. it might be difficult to delete because the virus makes itself "access denied". so just keep trying, and you will eventually get it.

have anymore questions? post below.

i know this might sound a little mean but.... what was the point of this post, to educate us in the most obvious things?

Hi Booman

Jester's post may seem obvious to me and you but take a look throughout the forum and you will find someone (some idiot) blaming LW for downloading viruses to their PC instead of blaming themselves.



UK Bob

thats stupid ull always get a virus if u download a text file it happened to me