Yes.
Any file can present with a ".torrent" extension.
The likelihood of an actual application/x-bittorrent being a virus is low. You're more likely to get a virus from the thing the torrent directs to.
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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If there’s malicious data in the file that triggers a vulnerability in a torrent client then maybe. Depends on how the client responds and if that response can be exploited.
Example of a torrent file causing a crash:
Probably FF being overzealous. I would just double check that the file is definitely a torrent and not named something like ReallyCoolStuff.torrent.exe.
protip on this front: Turn off hiding file extensions in file explorer. Then you will see if it's an exe or not. I don't know why tf windows turns that on by default. It's stupid.
This default setting is easily one of the stupidest and most costly mistakes in the history of computer engineering. It is incomprehensible that they have insisted on keeping it this way since XP.
It literally just begs you to ask "why does this picture have a .jpg extension while the rest don't?" before double-clicking on it to find out more.
"I want my important desktop document to be called 'QDROP FWD FROM GRANDMA', not 'QDROP FWD FROM GRANDMA.docx' I am not a hacker!!!" - average windoze UX focus group participant, probably
Theoretically yes, though I'm in inclined to believe this may be a false positive.
Whenever a program looks at the contents of a file, some code (called a parser) runs that goes over the file content in order to discern its structure and pluck out the relevant information. Parsers essentially take formatted data and turn it into easy-to-work-with data structures. Since the parser's input could be some random file off the internet, potentially crafted by an attacker, a flaw in the parser code can easily be a security vulnerability. I think most security vulnerabilities are in parser code actually.
Now, the torrent file format is pretty simple, so the parser code ought to be simple as well, but that does not mean there cannot be security issues with it. So it is not impossible, in theory, that opening a torrent file could infect your computer with malware, same as opening any other file you get off the internet. You'd hope/expect, if any such security bug is found in any bittorrent software and/or is being exploited in the wild, it would be fixed quickly with an update.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/406695/reading-the-fileset-from-a-torrent
you can read them with some libraries, and check in vm, but seems very doubtful, it can, however, download some shady shit you don't expect
I think they're just text files. So I would imagine not, but hackers are getting smarter and more concerted everyday, so it wouldn't surprise me.
No, browsers just like to report them as malware for some reason.