Whether you’re pro or anti piracy, replacing that content with malware & scams does not make the world a better place.
I'm pretty confident they'd like to but it's a tricky problem. Based on this article, they're downranking based on number of legit DMCA requests - the good sites will generate a lot of signal on that front. The bad/malicious sites won't.
The malicious/scam sites usually come and go quickly, so it's hard to learn which ones they are - if you figure out one site is a scam, and a new one pops up.
A real solution would require being able to make an automatic judgement about whether a site is bad/malicious based on the content of the site, but that's really hard, and it's really bad when you get false positives, so you have to be super conservative about it.
So if one side is powered by human ingenuity assisted by algorithms, you need both on the other side, not one or the other. It was the folly of Google to think they could get by using algorithms alone, and the immensely complex, human tweaked, secret soup that Search has become is the result.
In all seriousness, curation is one of the most valuable skills a human can provide; I do sometimes wish it was easier to find curated content on the internet, but that isn't really what a search engine does. It is something that eg HN and Reddit provide.
The closest we have to curated content is the relatively recent "awesome" lists.
I hope my feeling of relative safety is justified, but I'm not a security expert(?).
PS: Before anyone gets upset that I use such services, I'm not a heavy "pirate" by any measure. When I needed it I purchased software like Adobe Creative Suite or Jetbrain IDE licenses without hesitation. I only use it for things I don't really need and only use once, such as checking out a TV series (I very, very rarely watch anything, relying on specific Youtube and Twitch content instead, leaving two - one came with the apartment rent, one with the Internet - cable TV subscriptions unused).
I just use incognito and adblock. My impression is that whenever there's a remote code execution bug in chrome it becomes big news (ex: Meltdown/Spectre) so usually I can just trust the browser sandbox. Surely anyone with an exploit that can break the sandbox would use it on high value target rather than wasting it on the mass and having it get patched quickly?
I think I've become complacent since it's been more than a decade since I've gotten a virus/malware just from clicking a link.
I'm worried that I probably would not even know when/if I have any malware unless the malware detection actually manages to detect it. I think lots of malware tries to remain inconspicuous and not draw attention to itself, only using your machine as a gateway or data source. Even though I know TCP/IP inside out and could inspect my network traffic, there is soooo much stuff going on in today's PCs that I have no intention of even trying.
I would not even know where to start if I had to inspect my operating system. I remember many years ago when a friend's laptop was always buys and created lots of network activity, it was obvious and easily confirmed that it had become a source of spam emails. I think a lot of malicious code is quite a bit more sophisticated and careful now, plus, the much increased bandwidth and raw PC power most people have available lets the same activity go unnoticed that 10 years ago might have had noticeable effects.
That means I think that not noticing any malware nowadays is not proof of absence of malware when the base rate is included, i.e. if we assume a low number of infections assuming no malware gets it mostly right only because of the that, not because we have a reliable way to detect it. If the base rate changes and our assumptions about infections don't change that would be a sign that our own ability to detect infection does not play a role in how we get to our assumption. It would be an interesting study to compare measured infection rates with how safe users felt (if it is the same user population for both). AV vendors and Microsoft might be able to do that.
The dangerous ones are precisely the ones you don't know about.
If you want to be properly paranoid, you should consider getting a VPN. If you're not hiding your IP address, hiding all the rest is of limited utility. A VM doesn't really provide much meaningful anonymity - if someone wants to prosecute you for piracy they'll start by finding the IP address that was downloading/sharing the stuff (that's publicly visible).
On the other hand, it's pretty likely that this sort of paranoia is totally unnecessary - piracy prosecution against individual downloaders has been historically a PR nightmare for the groups doing it, and more or less everyone seems to have given up on that particular approach.
Still, if you want to be paranoid, a VPN will do a lot more for you than a VM and some add blocking.
For real anonymity, Tor is a much better option. Especially if used from a distribution like Tails.
Streaming pirated content is exactly as illegal as downloading in Germany and also the whole EU.
Here is a source: https://www.focus.de/digital/praxistipps/anwalt-zu-eugh-urte...
The illegality-of-streams question is not really relevant unless you are a premium account customer of a portal the authorities might get access to, or any streaming website they might get access to. They have no (legal) way to find streamers if they have no access to the server and/or whoever is hosting it or owns it. They get (non-VPNed) torrent downloaders because it's legally possible to find out which IP addresses download and/or offer a given file.
https://www.chip.de/news/Illegales-Streaming-auf-kinox-to-so...
In the past I did download torrent file videos - only to watch them exactly once or never. I got caught and paid the "Abmahnung" - so what. I stopped because I don't really need it. My need for such video content is very low. Usually I watch 10-30 minutes of movies, even "block busters", and then I'm too bored to ever watch the rest. For example, I still did not watch Game of Thrones past the end of the very first season.
How is a user supposed to know, for all anyone visiting a website knows it's licensed.
Anything on Netflix might be unlicensed, I have no way to tell, same with any random site. If I can find it, that means a large media corp can, so surely one must assume if they didn't get it taken down (sites are blocked and taken down all the time, blocked at ISP level) then it must be OK with the large rights holders.
And of course we know that even stuff from MPAA can be copyright infringing. There's no way for users to establish if something is properly licensed because license are secret.
Instead I watch Youtube: lectures, documentaries, courses and music. Reading Arxiv papers is stimulating and interesting. Streaming anime can replace US shows quite well. Don't need US entertainment after all.
Torrents and pirate sites are actually fairly safe. You can always double check the SHA hash signature of the file you download as well with the official source.
I don't endorse pirating at all and usually pay for all my software though. Its just all my favorite TV shows are across multiple networks. I would pay money for a netflix that encompasses every TV show based on my usage. Such a service doesn't exist though.
It's Romanian IIRC.