downloading music for my mp3 player

[*jean*]

a) is it safe? ie viruses   b) wheres the best site? and c) I want a site that doesnt clag up my computer with rubbish.
 thanks in advance.. jean
 oh and Ill need astep by step tutorial too!

[Cob-Web]

Do you want to be legal or less legitimate? 

Legally (you usually have to pay for the music), places like Napster and iTunes are the biggest, but you can also download from Tesco, HMV, Amazon etc.

Less legally, there are a lot of "file sharing" sites, where people who own the music share it with other people for free - these sites are often where you can pick up nasties on your PC, and also the software allows others to "see" your hard drive over the internet so increases the risk 

[Nicola]

I posted on this yesterday but it disappearded 

I use itunes for downloading music to my ipod. A lot of my friends use free sites and I probably would if I downloaded more stuff or whole albums etc. but I only buy the odd song, maybe 2 or 3 a month, and so I don't mind paying 79p for them. The main thing I like about it is that it's easy to use, it was easy to install onto my computer with the software that came with the ipod and it puts songs directly into my itunes library and then directly onto my ipod when I connect it.

[michelle p]

Hi,

 my daughter uses i tunes for her i pod, but we all use limewire for every song you could ever think of, we've never had any problems with

it

[Cob-Web]

Hi,

 my daughter uses i tunes for her i pod, but we all use limewire for every song you could ever think of, we've never had any problems with

it

Michelle, if you Google search for "P2P Dangers" or "Limewire Dangers" there are a lot of reports about the problems that can arise - I've even read about a person who had their PC accessed through P2P and it was then used as a pornography image server; people were accessing the computer downloading porn that was hidden on the hard drive!! 

Once people know about the risks, then they can decide whether you are prepared to take them or not - imo, using a P2P file-sharing site is as risky as leaving your front door unlocked and putting a sign on the gate telling people about it; you just can't trust other people to be honest

Of course, the fact that sharing copywritten material is illegal is a totally different risk all together 

[Mary]

We caught a 'nasty' from Limewire.  My daughter had only used it once and the friend of ours who is a PC genius did say that there is a 10% risk of getting a virus when using Limewire   I'm no PC expert at all so couldn't comment on how accurate that statement was.

My daughter uses 'Esnips' for free downloads.  I've no idea how safe it is but she downloads loads of old songs from there

[*jean*]

ok Im a complete novice to this and lost already..   I want to be able to save the tune to my music and then either put it on a cd to play in car or onto my mp3 player a cheapo not an ipod. so is this possible I dont want people having access to my computer and I dont want to be illegal but if I pay for a track Id like to be able to put it on a cd for the car. im not intending giving it to anyone else.
 If its too difficult I wont bother as I can just order a cd fom amazon and put it on my computer then on to my mp3 player Im a bit (lot) paranoid about dowloading stuff..