An OPSEC community would probably say no, so I probably don't need to ask in those communities. But I'm curious about a (digital) pirate's perspective on this issue...

I mean, the sources listed here are supposedly "safe" right? But honestly, how much would you trust these "safe" sources?

When doing sensitive tasks like banking or filing taxes, do you:

Use a different OS on the same machine? (Dualboot)
Or put the pirated content inside a virtual machine?
Or just use a completely separate computer?

And since PC is much different than a Smartphone:

Would the extra sandboxing on Smartphones make pirating games on a Smartphone much safer compared to on a PC? (Not that there are much mobile games worth playing, just curious)

(PC in this context referring to all personal computers, regardless of OS)

And last question:

Non-installed/non-executable files such as .mp4 .mkv .mp3 .pdf .epub, are mostly safe right? I mean, you are using another program to opening it, not executing a file, there aren't much attack vectors as long as the video player / ebook viewer is up to date right? (Or am I understanding it wrong?)

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[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

You do your taxes on a VM? FreetaxUSA works just fine on Linux.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Why is it always like this...

Not everything and everyone is in the US.

I also prefer Windows to Linux in the desktop environment. As for my server tasks, I mostly prefer Debian and if needed I'll use Windows Server (obviously unlicensed/not activated).
I'll use what fits for the task. :)

Edit: Also not a bad thing to separate a machine that holds sensitive data (even if they are encrypted) from another with a higher risk rating. Even if it's Linux, Mac OS, Unix or whatever based.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

My mistake. The concept of "doing taxes" is usually US-specific, I don't really hear about that kind of thing from users in other, more civilized countries.

Genuinely curious though... Why use a VM for taxes?

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 20 hours ago

No worries.
As for your questions:
In Germany we can optionally file taxes. If we were overtaxed, we can claim the overcharged amount back.
As for why not on my main PC: I don't want that kind of software clogging up my main rig. Also helps keeping my digital mess a bit more organized ;)