I agree, I'm wary of downloading any of the files. However, if they were available directly on a website of some kind I'm sure these would be much more beneficial. Although with that comes the cost of hosting and creating etc etc. Probably not worthwhile.
If you are a Linux user, it is possible to create a new user which will give you another fresh desktop environment where you do not have a chance to get hacked or file encrypted or any kind of hacking-related issues. I guess we can use such fresh operating system to download these contents so it won't be able to harm our files or data. Or, if someone has a fresh operating system already that do not contains any personal information or important data, you may try downloading these guides if you want. For me, I am planning to download some guides/courses in a new system.
, Thank God we made this far and I pray we see many more years .