A field guide to backing up your own media: which download and archiving tools are clean, which installers bundle junk, and how to keep an offline copy of work you are entitled to keep. Tested on real machines we then have to clean up ourselves.
We run every tool on a fresh machine and log what else arrives with it. Bundled toolbars and miners end a review early.
Purchases disappear, platforms sunset, accounts lock. We document lawful ways to keep personal copies of what is yours.
Storage formats, naming schemes, verification hashes. The boring parts that decide whether an archive still opens in ten years.
A monthly note: one archiving workflow, one tool verdict, one thing to stop installing.
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