Warning! Be aware of fake YIFY websites, torrents, movies, and CODEC packs.

[BB1950]

I just discovered a video from a downloaded torrent, when played that had sound but no picture.

What was displayed was this:

I would stay well away from YIFY-Movies-Official.com unless another experienced member here can personally vouch for it.

There is no YIFY CODEC pack! It's a scam YIFY site. I would consider uninstalling whatever you may have installed. It may be malware.

I personally almost fell for it...

All the "movies" on there were a suspicious 821.44MB and the fact they want you to download a codec after taking surveys and stuff just to play what should be an ordinary MP4 file rang very big alarm bells...

So I did a little research:

There's been some confusion recently caused by fake impostor sites claiming to be us. For the record, the ONLY domain names we primarily operate under are http://yts‌.re and http://yts.wf. Any other domain names, especially ones containing the word "official" are fake, and we advise against trusting them.

We use http://yts‌.re as our primary domain, and we operate https://yts.wf for users in the UK, Malaysia, or any other country with internet blocking to be able to access our site.

reference

Be careful on torrent sites and always scan your downloads.

Edited December 18, 2014 by BB1950

[Daffy D]

A few basic rules when downloading.

Stay away from any site that says you need to download their codecs to play a movie.

Do not click on any of the sponsored "high Speed" links that are sometimes found at the top of the results list.

Check on comments before downloading, you'll soon get to know what's safe.

Look back at some of the sites safe mentioned on this forum.

You can get practically all you need from just a couple of safe sites, stick with those and you should be OK.

[Jack Mountain]

... and dont download .RAR containers .... they will ask for a password to be picked at a website ... and then the AV becomes crazy ...

[KhunBENQ]

Daffy D has given the necessary advice.

This "dowmload codec" is a common virus/trojan trap for years.

I myself do not use any torrent / peer to peer stuff.

[WhizBang]

... and dont download .RAR containers .... they will ask for a password to be picked at a website ... and then the AV becomes crazy ...

I think I would rephrase that to say... do not download rars that require obtaining a password from a different site. Any rar that requires a password, should have the password listed alongside the rar links.

Using passwords to open/extract the contents of an rar is not uncommon, but it should be given upfront by the uploader.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Don't download any Torrent directly to your PC. There are many services that will download and host them for you. You can then choose to stream or to download them safely. So you can see whether it is carp before you use your precious time and bandwidth.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Jiu-Jitsu

[casualbiker]

Don't download any Torrent directly to your PC. There are many services that will download and host them for you. You can then choose to stream or to download them safely. So you can see whether it is carp before you use your precious time and bandwidth.

Can you give an Example!

but also if you do that, how can you seed the torrent back again?

[lostinisaan]

I miss the goddamned Pirate bay a lot. But I can be glad that I've got at least almost all useful Window programs.

[lostinisaan]

Don't download any Torrent directly to your PC. There are many services that will download and host them for you. You can then choose to stream or to download them safely. So you can see whether it is carp before you use your precious time and bandwidth.

It's always good to have a functioning school computer to try almost all. If something goes wrong, all is backed up and it takes 30 min, to have it back.

Acronis is in my opinion a real good one.

BTW, why's my wife always in advertisements for travel girls on this webpage? Should I have a chat with her, or with the guys from this forum?-

Edited December 19, 2014 by lostinisaan

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Don't download any Torrent directly to your PC. There are many services that will download and host them for you. You can then choose to stream or to download them safely. So you can see whether it is carp before you use your precious time and bandwidth.

Can you give an Example!

but also if you do that, how can you seed the torrent back again?

It's not what I use currently, since they increased their prices, but FileStream is a good example.

They have a limited free service for Torrents of 1GB or less.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Alternatively, Tribler

[lostinisaan]

Alternatively, Tribler

Thanks, man. Downloading it and give it a try.

[bendejo]

If you're told you need a special program to download from a site, move on.

If it says you have to download something special to view the content then don't.

If you're attempting to download a video and it turns out to end in exe get out of there.

[arjunadawn]

If you download and install K Lite codec pack, standard, full, or mega- and it is free - you will never need another codec. then, when you see such a request as to get a new codec, you know immeditalty it is BS> I just downloaded a movie from yifi that i too thought was legite. As soon as i see such a thing i delete.

Note, if any of you use Media Player from windows you should change download usage rights automatically or fetch codec. this is another way that media files try to get home.

[CaptHaddock]

Or you can install Popcorntime and watch the torrent downloads in realtime, at least a large sampling. Since I don't fully trust popcorntime either, it's best to do so on an isolated, sandbox computer.