I'll be brief..
There is just so much info and talk on P2P (Peer to Peer) File sharing software on the Net it's unbelievable
Lets look at some facts:
All the well known
P2P programs (Limewire uTorrent etc) do
not contain Malware
P2P allows data to be available for transfer from point A to point B
Downloading Torrents is quite safe from a respectful "Safe Site"
Generally users do not download data from "Safe Sites"
Using P2P software a user must allow an exception to their Firewall
P2P software allow access in and out of your computer
Data is
shared between multiple downloaders\uploaders
That's basically the grunt of it.
But, this is where the fault starts for most users. What is a "Safe Site" or location?
Well if you were say downloading a Torrent
Podcast from your local TV station, generally I'd say you were pretty safe
Actually many respectful Web based sites use Torrents as their main download P2P service
So what's the issue then? Especially since it's used globally on many respectful sites.
Well there are also many less desired sites that use P2P and torrents, actually these sites out weigh the respectful sites by about 100 x
These bad sites (meaning riddled with Virus and Malware and lots more) are the known: Gaming; P0rn; Movies; Music; Pictures; Spam; 1llegal; Underground; Dark sites (and this list can be truly never ending)
Sadly this is where most of the P2P and torrents are generally downloaded from
So who cares, you say; you have all your Antivirus and AntiMalwares and Firewalls up to date.
Oh, that's right your Firewall was totally (100%) bypassed, as per the facts above
Oh the Virus and Malwares are hidden deep inside the programs and are not picked up
Oh yer the other Peer on my shared folder (or drive) has full access
Oh all my identifying info, including IP; Location; OS; Browser; Name is all sent out too
Who cares again? Well this is the crunch. Most of these free programs and software and data, is generally cr@cked, and also includes Time bombs; and malware that can fully remove all defense and security software from your computer. Making it totally defenseless, allowing all your private data to be sent out to others
Hmm, no wonder users who use P2P generally get infected by Trojans Rootkits etc
And no wonder that they are bombarded with Spam emails and generally inevitably having corrupted Windows software
Why do they do this? Because there's money to be made from selling your private information, especially to sales companies. Or it's an individual who just wants to hack you.
My recommendation: Uninstall