Millennial here. The true answer is None Of The Above. The actual download button is just a blue link somewhere on the page, probably among all of the torrent info.
This is the correct answer. It might also be the filename shown. If you can put your cursor over that it might become underlined. All big Download buttons are not to be trusted.
It always irked me back in the day when cnet was still a useful source because they modeled their buttons that way. Then they eventually became the garbage the site appeared to be at first glance.
I might be biased against that from the ages of dialup, where torrenting almost always ended up failing if you also seeded, but you felt guilty if you leeched.
No lie, this is how I learnt keyboard hotkeys as a kid. I'd click middle mouse to open a link on the site in a new tab, with my hand ready to go on Ctrl + W. The nanosecond I detected a fake site, I'd closer that sucker and move onto the next link.
Oh boy did I bring a lot of viruses on my computer in the process in the name of efficiency & greed (& hefty amount of stupidity).
About 2 years ago I spent most of a Christmas sorting out my MIL's new laptop, uninstalling junk and whatnot, and I tossed ublock origin on there. A few days ago I came back to sort out the Realtek audio drivers which uninstalled themselves via Windows Update. I find she has an entirely different laptop now, branded as"Acemagic" but through the magic of forced Microsoft Sign-in ublock origin synced to Edge on this new laptop, and there was no crapware installed despite the laptop clearly being in use for about 6 months already!
TL;DR install ublock origin on your parents computers to save yourself some trouble down the line
Every time a dodgy site has asked me to disable it, it still doesn't work, and now you have a bunch of tracking cookies and has to look at ads for other porn sites.
There are 3 "downloads" there without advertisement written under them. Just use the most basic looking button, it's like how the holy grail is the most plain looking one.
An adblock doesn't necessarily help here. Those work by blocking pictures from being loaded from domains that usually serve ads. Here, they're likely hosting the download link images on their own server, but they'll send you someplace you don't want to go.
I'll go with the small red download button in the middle.
It could be the very bottom one, but it probably says advertisement under that and it's just been cropped out.
But even the correct button is likely to launch you into a popup to try and get you to download a "downloader" of some description, as if that's not literally the sole function of a fucking web browser, and then suddenly you've been taken to livejasmin.com or a sketchy gambling site targetted at Asians.
The most plain looking one, or the one left after AdBlock has hidden all the rest. Or depending on the site and how far into it you've clicked, potentially none of them because it'll start automatically after a few moments in some places.
Millennial here. The true answer is None Of The Above. The actual download button is just a blue link somewhere on the page, probably among all of the torrent info.
This is the correct answer. It might also be the filename shown. If you can put your cursor over that it might become underlined. All big Download buttons are not to be trusted.
It always irked me back in the day when cnet was still a useful source because they modeled their buttons that way. Then they eventually became the garbage the site appeared to be at first glance.
Came here to say this. Closest onscreen would probably be the grey "Download or Watch" button not trying to get your attention in any way.
"or watch" is a red flag.
The real download button only shows up after 30 seconds.
The file name looks like a link, it’s at least a slightly different color than the other text.
Gen Z here. I usually look for the magnet link to copy paste into my torrent client. I think that bypasses the download button problem.
I might be biased against that from the ages of dialup, where torrenting almost always ended up failing if you also seeded, but you felt guilty if you leeched.