Help! I would like to use Audacity for my class, But..

Hi,

I am teaching a Moviemaking class at my Homeschool Co-op and would like to use Audacity for our Audio Editor. We are using Windows Live Moviemaker in class and I had hoped that Audacity would be a good pairing for it. I already use Audacity for our families’ personal use and we Looove it.
Anyhoo, I gave my students your site and gave instructions on how to download it. One of my students downloaded it onto their personal computer and it gave their PC a wicked bad virus that completely tanked their computer.
I felt horrible of course, and now I’m not sure how to proceed for the rest of my class.

Our family downloaded Audacity off of a disc and not the internet so we didn’t have any ishes when we downloaded.
I’m at a loss and would really appreciate any help.
I really like your program and for Homeschoolers on a very tight budget it’s the perfect Audio Editor to get kids out there making movies and vids.

Thanks for any assistance,
:slight_smile:

Audacity does not do that if you download it from us, but you have to give your students firm and clear instructions how to download and what not to do.

Assuming you use Windows, you must tell them to go to Audacity ® | Download for Windows .

Then they left-click the link for the “Audacity 2.0.6 installer” or “Audacity 2.0.6 zip file” and wait for the download box to appear.

They must not at any time click on Big Download Buttons because those will probably be advertisements for products that contain malware. Or at least, they will not be downloading Audacity.

What you could do instead is to download Audacity yourself, put it up on Dropbox or whatever cloud server you use, then give your students a link to that file. You are perfectly entitled to distribute Audacity like that as long as you don’t modify any of the files.


Gale

I think that is a bit strong. I’d say “do not click on Big Download Buttons because those will not be downloading Audacity. Big Download Buttons are adverts for other products that may contain malware.”

Our download partners do not condone adverts for malware, but policing advertisements is not easy and some malware adverts do sometimes appear.

Downloading from unofficial sources is definitely not recommended because there are bad people out there on the Internet who are constantly trying to trick the unwary into downloading bad stuff.

I think that is the best solution, but do take care if students are allowed to use USB memory sticks. USB memory sticks should ALWAYS be scanned by an up to date virus scanner before use on the school system. Viruses can be spread at an alarming rate via USB memory sticks.

A difference between your “may” and my “probably”, then. :wink:

As our recommended download site for LAME and FFmpeg says:

Banners that look like BIG GREEN DOWNLOAD ARROWS are usually MALWARE. Avoid those banners.


Yes, that is fair comment, nonetheless the above comment about download buttons stands, in my opinion. Most of those are designed to trick the user and are malware.

One of our download partners for Audacity removes download button ads on the automatic assumption they are malware. Unfortunately, such banners may be on the site for a short while because Google does not vet such ads unless they are already blocked for abuse.


Gale

Yes :smiley:

There’s no harm in being overly cautious on the Internet or with computer security generally. I just thought the original text was a bit harsh in that it could give the impression that our download partners were accomplices of the bad guys, which they are not. I know that the administrator of the LAME download site takes security very seriously, and if malware is reported on his site he deals with it immediately. Unfortunately free download sites are prime targets for people that want to distribute malware because of the popularity of those sites.