The word Google has become a word that every computer uses as a verb. Everyone "googles" items they are interested in learning more about. Often we google programs that we download. That is where you can get into trouble.
Repackaging is when someone downloads a program and adds their own components to it and then makes it available for download. Those extra components can be beneficial to you or, more often than not, malevolent.
How do you know what's safe and what's not? I'll use an example that I encountered today.
VLC is a media player that is available for free. It reads practically everything. It's free and useful so this is a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.
Google "download VLC Media Player."
The list includes the download from the publisher VideoLAN, but it also contains the download from other sites. I trust CNET a tech site, but how do you know which of the other sites are safe? You don't really. It's best to download the item from the publisher.
Most people will just click on the top one no matter what it says. Don't do that anymore. Read to make sure you are not getting a repackaged software.
And don't ever download anything from a "filesharing" site (like filehippo). They aren't safe. Bad guys set them up. We don't like to trust bad guys, do we?
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