I would personally be far less trusting of downloading a zip...
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2025
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Same. Can't see what's in a zip until you've downloaded it.
Just a reminder to update your Winrar, there has been a big vulnerability in the .10 version of Winrar and some people have actually managed to exploit it. Someone linked an article for it, the other day but I can't find it rn
Please just use 7zip....
(And update that as well)
I switched to 7-Zip many years ago, and then to Linux last year, but thanks for caring. :)
I'm not really sure what you mean by gathering data, an info or nfo file is just a text file with some instructions.
To me a zip file is a lot more suspicious than a normal directory of files.
NFO files are just text and don't execute, so generally should be safe.
Unless they didn't enable file extensions to actually show, so an ".nfo" could actually be a ".nfo.exe".
It does not seem to be the case here, but I really would be careful with double clicking untrusted files. Opening them through a media player directly is a much safer option.
sounds like you had a nfo file which when you doulbe clicked it opened "system information" because windows doesnt recognize nfo as a text file.
There is nothing sketchy about unzipped files, its zips with passwords you gotta watch out for. The nfo thing is just your system doesnt have an nfo viewer, you can search one up or just use notepad to open them if you want.
oh okay thank you. I was afraid because it was literally system info
I think System Info is a windows thing - try running "msinfo32.exe" and you'll see the same result.
I think microsoft have configured .NFO files to open in this tool by a file association, despite pirates using them as text for DECADES.
If something pops up that you've never seen before, just search online for what it is. If you don't know what System Information is, literally search "what is system information windows" and find out. This can be done for so many things and you don't have to wait for an answer.
Additionally, in the "Open with..." dialog on Windows, you can see that System Information is the default application for .nfo files. Just change it to Notepad or something and you'll never have this problem again.
What does
gather all the data
even mean? .info are just text files with some markup.
If you double click them on windows it opens some system info app iirc, maybe that's where the confusion is
Yup, you have to open those files with a text editor like Notepad to actually seed its contents.
Do you mean like a rar file that's been split up?
Those happen because the people doing the initial recording or rip are often using platforms with poor error detection and correction for transferring files, such as IRC. They need the built-in correction offered by rar.
They get uploaded to BitTorrents as is. BitTorrent has more sophisticated error detection and correction of chunks than rar does, so this is pointless from a strictly technical perspective.
Reminds me of the time I torrented a tar, which contained a hundred rar parts, which extracted to an iso, which extracted an installer to extract the actual (compressed) files.
By itself - no, why would it? Cracked software will cause virus thingy to pop off anyway though, so either be careful with sources, or don’t have anything important on pc.
Like shenanigans protection of something unknown is trying it in vm first🫠, so it’s kinda on trust side of equation more often (see comments, trusted releaser etc)
(you can of course do some checks of registry, recently installed programs/processes/autorun settings etc, but something like encryption locker worms will fuck up your pc in a minute)
Are there things that can be undetected/hidden from system explorer - where you'd have to use terminal/powershell to view that it exists (hidden malware)?
i mean probably? but that some designer type shit (driver modifications/ram/bios or something) not that typical in civilized piracy circles, worst i got is some referal swaps/default sites in browsers 10 years ago
What makes you think the file gathered the data? What data?
You have your file associations set incorrectly or at least not optimally right now. NFO files are text only files that usually tell you about what you just downloaded, your system is set to treat them as something else and did the wrong thing. Text only files are usually harmless.
I think the windows default is to treat them as something else rather than opening them in notepad or something
.nfo is just ASCII text, you open it in a text editor.
Your Imgur link isn’t working for me. You should be able to put the image in a reply.
If you open nfo files by double click Windows open a system info tool.
But if you open nfo files with a text editor with "open with " it shows it's text.
So it didn't gather anything.
And I would argue unzipped files are less dangerous because you kinda can assume what you download already.
It's also a good idea to have a av.
Avast is very friendly regarding piracy as in they seem to only flag actual malware and not necessarily keygens cracks and stuff ( heuristics can still make mistakes just report them as false positive )