'Dangerous' programs and their alternatives
Most users of programs such as Kazaa may have noticed a lot of viruses, spyware and adware, not only in the program itself but also on the filesharing network. The following list deals with exactly such programs and shows alternatives to programs which pose a threat themselves, or programs which are generally considered not safe to use.
| Application | Reason | Alternative(-s) |
| Amule | Network getting polluted | See Kazaa |
| Bearshare | Contains spyware | See Kazaa |
| Edonkey2000 | Contains spyware | See Kazaa |
| Emule | Network is getting polluted | See Kazaa |
| IMesh | Contains spyware | See Kazaa |
| Grokster | Contains spyware | See Kazaa |
| Kazaa | Contains spyware |
Shareazaa, Limewire, binaries or torrents (also other alternatives) |
| Kazaa Lite | Contains spyware, less then Kazaa | See Kazaa |
| Morpheus | Contains spyware | See Kazaa |
| Trustyfiles | Contains spyware, polluted network | See Kazaa |
| 180search assistent | Adware | none |
| Aurora | Adware | none |
| Bonzi Buddy | Contains spyware | The standard windows screensaver |
| Comet Cursor | Adware | none |
| Clipgenie | Adware | none |
| Cydoor | Adware | none |
| Divx codec | The codec form divx.com contains spyware (free version) | Safe codecs |
| Dope Wars | Contains spyware | None |
| Direct revenue | Adware | none |
| eBates moneymaker | Adware | none |
| Errorguard | Spyware masked as system tool | None |
| Gator | Adware | none |
| Hotbar | Adware | none |
| Radlight | Contains spyware, removes Ad-aware | Windows media player |
| Weatherbug | Contains spyware | none |
| Porndigger | Adware | none |
| WinFixer | Adware | none |
| Hitman Pro | May delete system files | Alternatives |
| Internet explorer | Some security risks | Mozilla Firefox or other browsers |
| Windows Firewall | Only blocks outbound traffic | See the firewall section |