Can I trust downloading Python?

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Aaron Martin
<aaronspencermartin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, I am thinking about getting a software but it requires python, so that
> brought up a few questions. Is it safe do download python, and does it come
> with spam or advertisements? If it doesn't then should I get the latest
> version? I mostly want to know if it is safe to download, because most of
> the time downloading free stuff off the internet comes with spam and all
> that, so I want to know if I can trust downloading it.

Yes, you can trust Python. If you don't like the precompiled versions,
you can simply download the source code (plain text files) and build
your own, so any advertising in it could be removed very easily - and
would thus be worthless, so nobody bothers to put any there. Open
Source is different from ad-funded software; both of them cost you no
money, but there's a complete difference in philosophy.

Definitely get the latest version (currently 3.3, soon 3.4). Python
keeps getting new features and improvements.

ChrisA