Are downloads from ZDNET safe?
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
United States
October 21, 2008 9:27am CST
i always thought they were but then i had some problems with my pc after downloading something there but it could have been a few things so i cant definitely know if it was the download from zdnet.com or not.. have they had virus issues or anything? is it safe to download anything off of there?
4 people like this
6 responses
@mentalward (14691)
• United States
21 Oct 08
I believe that's a very safe site. I actually downloaded a program from them just last week. I asked my husband about ZDNet because I was worried about the same thing. He said that it's quite safe; it's been around a very long time and that alone says a lot about the validity of it.
My husband is almost anal about internet safety, so I tend to trust him when he says something is safe. I'd say you're good to go!
Sometimes it's just that one program is incompatible with another program but has nothing to do with problems of the individual programs. I can't tell you more because I'm nowhere NEAR being a computer whiz! I think I'll try to get my son to join myLot... my son the computer genius. 
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
21 Oct 08
yeah and me having a dell doesnt help either lol dell = pms'ing piece of sh!t
1 person likes this
@mentalward (14691)
• United States
21 Oct 08
If my hubby were home today, I'd ask you what problem you're having. He might be able to help you with it. My son will probably be visiting tomorrow. If you let me know what the problem is, he might be able to help. (It might even get him motivated enough to join myLot! 
)
)1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
23 Oct 08
well even if i didnt have the problem i have now i have never had a dell that worked right and i worked on a ton of them at various jobs and they all were horrible!! right now my pc is thinking its schizophrenic (this is nt the problem i had after the dl.. that got fixed.. i think haha) my hubby tried to reinstall windows and didnt hit the button to delete partitions so it has windows installed on here twice and its acting like half the hard drive is taken up and if you go through the c drive window you can find a crap load of things that wont show up any where else.. its acting like it has two hard drives.. we tried to reinstall it again and delete them this time and it wont work.. ive given up and have everything backed up and just happy i can get online.. but i miss all the hard drive space!! but the more we mess with it the worse it gets or at the least it just keep deleting my info and corrupting the programs so every try whether successful or not i have to reinstall everything such as browsers and microsoft office etc..
none of that probably made any sense.. if it hadnt happen to me i wouldnt understand it at all lol
1 person likes this
@AndrewFreyne (6281)
• United Kingdom
21 Oct 08
I don't know anything about ZDNET but I would say, if you experienced problems afterwards then it's a sure sign that you should not download anything from them in future. Was your pc working fine before hand? That's how you will know. Good luck. Oh by the way, do you have an antivirus installed on your system? If not, I recommend AVG 8.0. This is free and a very good product. Good luck. Andrew
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
21 Oct 08
i got the free vs of avg once and it wouldnt uninstall from my pc.. i think it was interacting with my other virus programs and so when i tried to uninstall it it wouldnt.. i wrote them and since it was free they didnt help me.. it was funny in a way.. but it was working great till i shut my pc down and had found some things.. just didnt wanna work when i brought it back haha
1 person likes this
@AndrewFreyne (6281)
• United Kingdom
21 Oct 08
Yes, that makes sense. AVG 8.0 is definitely a good product and the reason I think you had problems was the fact that, you had other antivirus products on your system. It is true that different products tend to contradict eachother. I would say, and this is only my personal view, get rid of the paid products and stick to avg! I only have this antivirus program on my computer, nothing else. I haven't encountered problems whatsoever. Again, best of luck. Andrew
1 person likes this
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
21 Oct 08
I have downloaded stuff on there and not had problems. I have always thought of the site to be safe. If you don't think it is, run a virus scan on the files before installing.
1 person likes this
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
23 Oct 08
i will be scanning things from now on.. just figured i never had to since i thought it was completely safe..
@know21 (1250)
• United States
21 Oct 08
Yes it is safe to download anything from Zdnet because there are one of the major known sites in the tech world. There up there with Pcworld and all the others. They also participated in The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
21 Oct 08
i knew they were pretty well known and up there.. not to mention been around forever lol
@ahgong (10064)
• Singapore
21 Oct 08
Not everything from ZDNET.com is save.
Always do a scan of whatever you downloaded before doing the installation.
It is very important to do that, regardless of where you are downloading the file from.
There have been reports of people getting their PCs infected with viruses when they did some downloads from ZDNET before.
Even CNET is not spared.
So beware of what you download. Thumb of rule is to always scan them for viruses before proceeding with any installation.
@moonlitmagikchild (22181)
• United States
21 Oct 08
ugh that sucks.. guess you cant be safe no where anymore.. thanks!! i usually already do that but for awhile i didnt with zdnet because i had never heard anything bad about it and then i had a weird thing happen and was wondering if two and two were connected
1 person likes this
@ahgong (10064)
• Singapore
21 Oct 08
One can never be too careful when going onto the internet.
It is better to err on the side of caution.
If I were you, I would try to recall if I went to any secure site after my last ZDNET download that requires login.
If you did, please, take some time to go and change all the passwords.
I lost a few thousand dollars from my e-gold account cos I had a trojan infection without knowing it. And there is no way to recover my monies.
Till today, I am still hurting from the loss everytime I think about it.
1 person likes this
@adihindu (1922)
• India
29 Oct 08
Don't trust anything in this virtual world i.e. internet. Even they make sure that the download doesn't contain any virus, but you will find virus after download. This may happen because of virus attack then you download. Make sure that you had installed good updated antivirus and it must give real time file protection. Apart from this, ZDNET is safe to download any software. Thank you.
1 person likes this
