Is it safe to download files from the internet?

That's a fairly open question ...

what type of files and from where ?

If you are unsure you can test links/files on virustotal.com ...

Impossible to answer that question, there's millions of websites, warez torrent sites have been known to host files that contain malware, you can't compare boards ie or Irish Times. com to say 4chan, random porn website or some weird extremist forum that hosts links to random files uploaded by userjoeblogbadguy79

You can download files to a sdcard and scan the file with a virus scanner

You might as well say is there a place I can go to buy clean pure drugs. The Internet is the wild West its not really controlled by anyone if you use chrome it usually says this site is unsafe do you wish to proceed ?

Eg this site is known to be bad or dangerous and it may contain malware or files that can harm users

If I wish to download a utility I go to the chrome webstore or a safe site like CNET. com pcmag.com

If you are downloading pirate software movies tv there's no gaurantee that it may not contain malware or files that are designed to spy on your computer looking for passwords financial info etc

I think it's safe to download files from a website like ww.podpay. Fm, eg. or ww. playerfm.com, mp3 podcasts, I download videos all the time from YouTube by going to a well known website, convert file to Mp4 720p

You need to be more specific, do you want to download games, TV shows, movies, there's the official apple iTunes app, or official apple app store, if you have an apple phone, tablet