I guess it depends on what you mean by safe.
I don't think it really is a security risk to the data on your computer
since other people don't get access to data outside your shared folder.
However, you have to be carefull with what you are sharing. In Europe
anyways, there are more and more companies specializing in scanning
various p2p networks for copyrighted files like music, movies, software
etc. If you have a file in your shared folder they are scanning for you
can get into a trouble. Usualy they send an automated mail to your
provider that they have to save the connection details. These can be
used in a lawsuit against you.
Now, from what I heard in germay they usualy don't take any legal
actions against you if you just have a couple of files. So you won't
get into jail, but that doesn't protect you against civil law suits.
From the cases I heard it's usualy that they have to pay a couple
hundred Euro to cover the legal costs and that's it unless you have a
few thousend files on your pc.
Bittorrent is great to distribute files at a low cost, so it is
especialy interesting for non profit organisations to distribute
freeware or open source programs.
But let's be real, most stuff on bittorrent or other p2p networks is
copyrighted and illegal to share in most countries. Well, I guess
you're fine in Canada, I think it's legal there
Just make sure that the stuff you download is legal to share (like
freeware, open source, etc), or maybe that it's old, outdated or out of
print stuff where the companies usualy don't care much about protecting
their copyrights.
Cheers
