Is it safe to download files from mediafire

MediaFire is a file hosting and cloud storage service that became popular as a platform for sharing large files. MediaFire has been around for quite some time. It was founded in late as an easy-to-use file hosting website meant for sharing large files. Plus, its security is severely lacking, offering no encryption option whatsoever.

A free account has 10GB of storage, with a file size limit of 20GB. So if all you need is a bare-bones file hosting service that lets you share large files , you can use MediaFire for that.

MediaFire might lack a lot of features that are now considered standard fare for cloud storage providers, but it still has some things going for it, including its decent free version.

Keep reading this MediaFire review for a closer look at MediaFire cloud storage. The previews open in a new tab, which is annoying. The lack of media playback is probably meant to discourage piracy. MediaFire automatically removes copyrighted content as another anti-piracy measure.

There is also no note-taking app nor any other kind of productivity feature. It has multiple issues concerning security and usability, but there will be more on that later in this MediaFire review. This makes a service already poor in features virtually useless. You can upgrade the storage space on your free account in several ways. The first is by referring other people to create a MediaFire account, giving you an additional MB of free storage for each referral.

However, these prices come with a disclaimer. MediaFire also offers a Business plan that can serve up to users. The website itself is a little rough around the edges, response times are slow and there are ads everywhere.

There is a mobile app, too, and it works on both Android and iOS. The MediaFire mobile app is pretty basic, as far as mobile cloud apps go, offering the usual fare. You can use the app to upload, download and share files, plus you can enable automatic backup of the photos and videos you take with your camera. You can set the interface to either a list view or an icon view, though in our testing, it kept switching between the two views on its own.

Next to that column is your folder tree, with your deleted files below that, and the center view is taken up by your files. Ads are a big problem with the MediaFire website. There are ads everywhere in the interface, mostly telling you to upgrade and informing you about all of the features you get with a paid MediaFire account.

Downloads open in a new tab, and there are external ads there, as well. Every click takes several seconds to register, and you have to wait a few seconds when you open a folder, as well. There are also issues that come up every now and then when trying to open your own files.

MediaFire makes it easy to share files. This means you can use MediaFire to share video files and other large files. However, its sharing features are very limited, especially for free users, so check out our guide on how to share large files over the internet, if you want alternatives. So anytime you want to update an uploaded file, you have to manually upload it to the website, instead of syncing it automatically. To share a file, you can right-click on the file you want to share and choose one of two options.

This copies a sharing link to your clipboard that you can paste anywhere you like. You can only create upload links to special folders called FileDrop folders. You can set passwords for sharing links, though you have to pay for that feature.

Despite lacking so many features that most of its competitors have, MediaFire still manages to find a few features to take away from its free users, and most of these features are related to sharing. Another feature that only paid users have access to is one-time links.

These links let you share a file that can be downloaded only once, preventing the file from changing hands unwantedly. A paid account will also let you download multiple files at once as a ZIP archive.

Paid accounts can also share multiple files at once, without having to first put them in a folder. We performed our speed test using a 1GB test file, with a download speed of 32 Mbps and an upload speed of 6 Mbps. The expected times were 23 minutes and 40 seconds for uploads and four and a half minutes for downloads. It took MediaFire an average of 32 minutes to upload our test file. There is also a progress bar to tell you how far along your upload is, which is a nice little feature.

MediaFire download speeds were good, with the 1GB test file taking around five and a half minutes to download, which is just a minute over the expected time. However, no matter how fast uploads and downloads are, the website is near unusable. It takes anywhere from four to 10 seconds to open any folder completely, which is unacceptable. The only protective measure MediaFire takes is letting you set a password for sharing links, and you have to pay to access that feature.

This means that to have any measure of safety while using MediaFire, you will have to use third-party encryption. I have heard of some security flaws in the site, and read reports about numerous infections taking place there, drive-by downloads and such. I usually stay away from sites like this, although in this case, this file seems to be from a legitimate developer. What I am concerned about though is the possibility of picking up some malware from the site in general, or that the file, or its page, since its upload, may have been injected with something malicious.

Does this seem like a secure thing to do, or is there a substantial risk of malware here? Any input is appreciated. Posted 30 December - AM. Posted 30 December - PM. Thanks for the reply I checked up on this developer's Facebook page, where I found an excerpt that reads something along these lines As long as you download the file properly, there should be no issues Posted 31 December - PM.

Community Forum Software by IP. Sign In Create Account. Javascript Disabled Detected You currently have javascript disabled. Register a free account to unlock additional features at BleepingComputer. Welcome to BleepingComputer , a free community where people like yourself come together to discuss and learn how to use their computers. Is MediaFire safe to download? After reading this post, I have a clear understanding of MediaFire. Click to tweet. MediaFire allows you to access your stored media libraries from any device connected to the Internet.

You can try to turn on Windows Defender Firewall with the following steps. You can use Windows Defender to scan the downloaded files. Here is how to do that:. Step 3: Click Quick scan or Full scan , or Customer scan and select the folder.

This tool will pop up and begin to scan the selected item. The whole process should end quickly. If there is no malware, you will see the message saying No current threats. However, if it detects some threats in the selected item, Windows Defender will show you an alert message saying Threats Found. Start the recommended actions and it will show you the file or files that have been infected. Then, you need to remove the found threats.

To do this work, you can click the Start actions button to continue. Step 4: Windows Defender will automatically delete the threats found from your computer. After that, your computer should be safe. In most cases, keeping a regular data backup is as important a step in seeking to protect against threats. So, to keep your files safe, you can choose to back up them. Once your data get lost because of the virus attack, you can use the backup to restore it.

To do that, you can use the professional backup program — MiniTool ShadowMaker. It is designed to back up your files, folders, disks, partitions, and the operating system to safeguard your files and the computer. Free Download.

Step 2: Click Keep Trial.