File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include manual sharing utilizing removable media, centralized servers on computer networks, World Wide Web-based hyper-linked documents, and the use of distributed peer-to-peer networking.

The method that we are concerned about is the Peer-to-Peer sharing:

• Peer-to-peer file sharing

  Users can use software that connects in to a peer-to-peer network to search for shared files on the computers of other users (i.e. peers) connected to the network. Files of interest can then be downloaded directly from other users on the network. Typically, large files are broken down into smaller chunks, which may be obtained from multiple peers and then reassembled by the down-loader. This is done while the peer is simultaneously uploading the chunks it already has to other peers.

In layman terms

File-sharing is basically the ability of sharing files with other people around the globe. Normally you will need a program like “Bearshare” to have this ability, this program will allow you to search for a song, video, program etc. and show you results for you to choose and download to your computer. The filesharing program will place that file in a folder (usually in your Documents folder, where your personal and critical data is) enabling you to share this and other files with other people who will connect to your computer with a similar program and download that file or other files from your computer.

Is File-Sharing safe for my computer?

There are many issues with filesharing, copyright, malware and identity theft are some of them and probably the most common as well. It is not Geekforce‘s intention to tell you how to use and what to do with your computer, but it is our ethical and professional duty to inform you that malware / virus and identity theft are the two biggest risks that you run in to with filesharing and thus are explained:

When you install any filesharing program you are letting this program control the flow of information that comes in and out of your computer, to enable you to share and download any files. This creates a vulnerability in your computer to let other people see what you have on your computer and allow them to download it, this is how identity theft may occur. At the same time when you download files from other people’s computer, you may be downloading a virus because you have no idea if they’re computer may be infected with viruses, Trojans, malware, spyware, etc. think of it as having unprotected sex with hundreds of thousands of people.

How does this affect my 1-year virus free warranty with geekforce?

Filesharing is essentially the only exception to our warranty. When you allow filesharing on your computer, you are asking for problems regardless of what kind of security program you have and this is because you are allowing this to happen by ignoring and overriding the rules of your security software set to protect you.

Here is a list of some filesharing programs:

• Frostwire
• Bearshare
• uTorrent (or any torrent clients)
• LimeRunner
• Ares Galaxy
• Shareaza/Sharetastic