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-3.3.3-x64.AppImage  106300608 a47cb5089e8ebb405f2da1be83630a2bb706df0abc7a48d083894cb809cf4dac
audacity-macOS-3.3.3-arm64.dmg      23996559 783262df08e76fd247590a47b42e921d8b1a0ad38bb050854654e10f6030760e
audacity-macOS-3.3.3-universal.dmg  50336478 e9fd97ddf1b489d547d4c2dfd2573cff4e62cb92e92ee50f7adf9f62a5dfbeb0
audacity-macOS-3.3.3-x86_64.dmg     25609808 eab0687b4f218a80ee4b661f45a09e7674b387033b6aa04efdd31a1f0d9f77c6
audacity-manual-3.3.3.tar.gz        22938196 7e559a84469778e874ff82d15d8d09ce64dd907700f3009b7098dc49af2f2c58
audacity-sources-3.3.3.tar.gz       57271955 3d9ff1fc6a0ecd6591f19445c77c80774d364b268da652760829cf3598e08071
audacity-win-3.3.3-x32.exe          13930568 5557df6b8ae57fc46443f9e85a42bac50fa37456c0757c5569e60430d0e359dc
audacity-win-3.3.3-x32.zip          20926785 b593f2496a8c945234ebac7da354b110faf404785f90dbda9be29c6426860d74
audacity-win-3.3.3-x64.exe          15293896 379a03b37fba8d4b71e10cb0034e303e43cb2fbffb9af423a7b87be3b32bf94d
audacity-win-3.3.3-x64.zip          22791581 3060f6a46b4eaf23816826037fb05934812199f19944162e9d9ba03ba5d8cc4a