how do you guys stay safe downloading?

do you guys download everything in vm's and only open the files there? Do you have a separate computer just for this?

I run all software except for genuine products on a VM. Most modern PC's can handle at least one virtual machine running at a reasonable speed. Even though Virustotal scans or any AV scans for that matter say the file is clean, it may be infected. You never know. Using a VM is an easy solution to avoid getting fucked by malware. As for VMs, VirtualBox is free and I use it personally, I have 4 Windows VMs running simultaneously and it can handle it without any issues.

thanks for the answer man! Do you just have massive storage or do you periodically swap vhd's or something? My memory is a little hazy on how vhd's work, that may be a completely stupid question lol

Yeah, pretty good sum up by @Ghost , any file could contain malware even if it's not detected. Even if it's from trusted sources you still have to be careful.

I think the best answer to this is not to download anything lol. Even a smaller risk to get infected xD

I don't bother going through extra steps, I just don't download anything even remotely sketchy. I won't download anything send via a message either. Use official websites and you'll be good.

thank you hope this is still good!!!!!