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-3.2.5-x64.AppImage   45212864 4f62a07087ddd10ab4f7c1fcfd27f0b18b0d472e62833c444b0300b853cc3b5f
audacity-macOS-3.2.5-arm64.dmg      22201307 a308b5b489c759316618d3610f3dce04d1eebf286350595b1977416957909304
audacity-macOS-3.2.5-universal.dmg  39495044 6448490c37be37a068b0719a45e9c63e0e32aff8ca6fed5a0136b129682fc354
audacity-macOS-3.2.5-x86_64.dmg     23679840 5aced6ffc9c9a26874dee9235f19757dff5b0319daa4b65a60b4d887fdf4251d
audacity-manual-3.2.5.tar.gz        22260237 7ca47878b26209f2c51d1b5fc774a6776767a194c7ecc664cd0f70e632ffa5c8
audacity-sources-3.2.5.tar.gz       57163122 9dccca77208e902ed6fd49869f400e31f8e225884003f57c06a5d03f75dbfaf3
audacity-win-3.2.5-x32.zip 19247085 c03c00aad0210ffee6facafc8bee22b98acc6dfb1232f7f5d0d75444f8def722
audacity-win-3.2.5-x32.exe          13144760 bdfe5ba5f2d51869fdc0c0cc713aad5aced06e0b8d16c72fe08311480854f906
audacity-win-3.2.5-x64.zip 20941607 c94922702ac81070c5aeb6a9edd71f6649ea1b67442c8c9e3f8c54343e45e47a
audacity-win-3.2.5-x64.exe          14392168 a0a34facbcc28dbe0b6905b29f6aa17353d40383214414e5693d4640f5e4527d