How we're making file sharing safer

We've taken some steps to help protect our users from downloading files that could be potentially dangerous. For example, malware or spyware.

Program files, unlike safer files like documents, media files and images, are the main culprits.

You may have noticed recently that, when downloading a program file, we've added a red warning message, explaining that the file that could potentially contain malware. Most program files are safe, but, unfortunately, sometimes people upload programs that could contain a virus.

In addition, we want to protect people from cases where they are sent a program file, but are told it's something else. For example, there are Internet scams where a scammer pretends to be a legitimate company that is owed money. The scammer then sends a program file to their victim, insisting its a copy of their invoice, when in fact it's a virus.

By providing our red warning message before downloading program files, we hope to protect people from any situations like these. People can still share and download program files easily, but we want downloaders to know what they could potentially be downloading.

Again, there is no warning for regular files, like Word documents, images, media files, MP3s and PDFs.