Online safety when downloading

Audacity Team takes online security very seriously and works hard to ensure the safety of our users, but our efforts can only be effective up to a point. For your online safety, it is important that you take reasonable precautions. The advice below is written specifically about Audacity, but much of it applies equally to using the Internet and downloading anything from anywhere.

At the very least, please always ensure that you follow the “Quick security checklist” below. For additional tips and information, read the rest of this page.

Quick security checklist

  1. Is your computer operating system up to date?
  2. Is your anti-virus program up to date and enabled?
  3. Are you downloading from the software’s official website?
  4. Did you follow the download and installation instructions?
  5. Have you scanned the downloaded file for viruses?
  6. Is the checksum of the downloaded file correct?

General computer security

  • Ensure that you computer’s operating system is up to date with all the latest security fixes. Ensure all applications you use, especially your web browsers, are kept updated. All operating systems and software can have security vulnerabilities, and software developers work hard to close them. If your computer is not kept up to date, you are potentially at risk.
  • Ensure you have reputable anti-virus monitoring software installed and that you keep it up to date. This means both having the latest version of the software, and keeping it updated with the software publisher’s latest definitions of viruses and suspicious behaviour. Consider doing one-off scans from time to time with a second anti-virus application, for a second opinion. New viruses and malware are created every day, so for effective protection it is essential that your security protection is kept up to date.
  • While Windows is the major target of most viruses and malware, neither Mac OS X or Linux are immune to attack, so avoid high risk websites and services. Emails can be faked. Don’t click links in emails that ask for your personal information.
  • Use an effective firewall. Most correctly configured routers provide effective firewalls. Consult the manual for your router to ensure that it is secured. Enable the most secure WPA2-PSK (AES) option, which is available on most modern routers. Use a software firewall too. On most modern operating systems, this just means checking if that firewall is running.

Download sites

Always use official sites for downloading software.

To download Audacity software, use the links in the download section to locate the required software, which link to the appropriate page of our content delivery partner, FossHub.

On FossHub’s download page, left-click on the appropriate text link (Do not ‘right-click’ as that will fail to download the software).

Beware the Big Green Button

Both the Audacity website and our download partner FossHub have a few adverts to help support our running costs. The adverts are filtered to block ‘bad’ adverts, but occasionally a bad advert may slip through. A common form of “bad advert” is what we refer to as “the Big Green Button”, which is an advertisement that attempts to lure visitors to download unwanted software or malware. The Audacity website is regularly monitored and such adverts are actively blocked as quickly as possible.

Testing links before downloading

Virus Total is a free online virus, malware and URL Scanner (https://www.virustotal.com/). To test the reputation of a site prior to downloading, select the “URL” tab on their main page, then copy and paste the web address that you wish to test.

Testing files after downloading

Your installed anti-virus software only gives you one opinion on a downloaded file. A quick and convenient way to virus check a downloaded file against over 50 anti-virus engines is to upload it to Virus Total (opens in a new window or tab).

Testing the validity of a downloaded file

To test that a file is unmodified, ensure that the downloaded file’s checksum matches with the checksum published by the software developer. The checksums for current Audacity downloads can be found at the bottom of this page.

To find the SHA-256 checksum:

You should check against the SHA-256 checksum because this is the most secure of the checksums listed for Audacity. There is an online checksum calculator available here:
https://md5file.com/calculator (opens in new window or tab).

Audacity checksums:

Name                                Length Hash                                                            
----                                ------ ----                                                            
audacity-linux-3.2.1-x64.AppImage 45143232 740d9427acad61499a2fc40ddd1dcedf433543a7de461af0bade7a1ba8b58201
audacity-linux-3.2.1-x64.json          747 8de5af22e60beb0e42a8fa0012f058fa3ad849cdd2a323c79b056c5b5d91a368
audacity-macOS-3.2.1-arm64.dmg    22124073 0afba6f74f152bc50ac271c92a02b94196a57248ed7219e796fede1f8b1f91e1
audacity-macOS-3.2.1-x86_64.dmg   23599989 b284dc858f8fdd770946c6894217ed16337e1fd2cd3472d6d87ea3bbd5ba3eaa
audacity-manual-3.2.1.tar.gz      22377603 508756fe1100ed52dc14f14c386dde5c1c0b97195426e42fdf5003178841f886
audacity-sources-3.2.1.zip        56793437 3739c0769f7b3cab4bc9a26a4d97a15130e3db57ddaa121ec3d313b8454bb59b
audacity-win-3.2.1-32bit.exe      13023952 ed7130b0e0f08bd54617053d08379306d1b935c4dffe5f7168a3613c07d9f6dd
audacity-win-3.2.1-32bit.zip      19100110 e88343867451d84d99cf9d0c1be53e9b7af128da6ab1f9fcacd90d6a03e55732
audacity-win-3.2.1-64bit.exe      14281408 35a318c716f2579bb81229c04375bc21cac878ad011d5d66d227f236e7d73ce6
audacity-win-3.2.1-64bit.zip      20794941 fb08f90f7b75cd108599d9a9355eaf6ed53b918e17bbc30ed2563011944e544d