Safest/safer download sites

[Muse]

Seems a great many if not the great majority of free utilities are bundled with things I don't want to install including toolbars, malware, even browsers.

Usually there are a handful of sites from which you can download. Which if any are safest?

 

[Elixer]

I usually go to the source that made whatever, and get it from them.
I don't bother with download.com or any other of those sites.

 

[Spacehead]

I usually go to the source that made whatever, and get it from them.

Same here.
If i have to go somewhere else to download a program i'll do a search for that site to see if there have been problems before.

 

[Ketchup]

http://filehippo.com - this is my first stop if they have what I am looking for
http://www.majorgeeks.com is another good one

IME, the author's site has the highest probability of having crapware built into the installer, or an installer that only gets things started, the rest needing to be downloaded during the installation process.

 

[lxskllr]

I *highly* prefer libre software, and will usually do without rather than run proprietary software. That being the case, I go to the author's site first and see where they offer download first. I prefer to get executables from their vcs or ftp site. Otherwise, I pick a download location based on reputation. Ketchup79 listed a couple good ones.

Libre vs proprietary... Libre software is less likely to screw you if you go where the author directs you. If they wanted to screw you, they'd have locked their code up, and hidden nasties inside. That breaks down somewhat when a repo turns scummy(like SourceForge), but it holds as a general rule.

 

[balloonshark]

http://www.majorgeeks.com/
http://www.softpedia.com/

I either go the source or use the two sites listed above. They usually give you a heads up if the file is clean or not and if it's ad supported, etc.

If you're worried about malware and your file is 128MB or under you can upload it to virustotal to be scanned by multiple scanners. https://www.virustotal.com/

 

[Ken g6]

https://www.nuget.org/

 

[pcslookout]

I just use the developer's website.

 

[Berryracer]

I only use www.majorgeeks.com since more than years

they tell you if something might have ad-ware in it and they have links to the files on their servers and a link to grab it from the author's site as well so you can't go wrong with them