I am new in wordpress and want to make a site for news publishing. I found some magazine style theme. my friend gave me the link. I want to know is it safe to use them. Can anyone clear me with this? This is the link http://wp-includes.com/10-best-responsive-wordpress-themes-magazine-style-themes-collection-2014/
Yes, it should be safe. After all, they're just themes. Double check the coding to see if there are any "loopholes" you're uncomfortable with. Generally though, themes are safe.
Usually free themes are safe. If you are worried, try looking up "Best WordPress Themes Smashing" in Google. Smashing Magazine is a very good site for web designers with solid feature articles (I don't work for them, I just read it!!!). Each year they feature their top 100 free WordPress themes. These are always solid, well tested themes. Good luck! Ps. Since the theme is the most important part of your WordPress site, start with one you trust.
Yes, themes from third-party are safe. And some of the theme in WordPress.org are provided by some other developer and not all by WordPress itself, for example, the Onetone theme(http://wordpress.org/themes/onetone) is developed by Mageewp(http://www.mageewp.com/), it is also a free theme and safe as other themes.
That's why they're called third party themes! Most should be safe but you should also be able to scan the code and understand most of it. If a theme is encrypted move onto another - they're not worth the risk.
I am 99.9% sure all the themes from that link are safe. You really do not have to worry too much about a theme being safe except when you are downloading "free premium themes..... "
Wow, I'm amazed that so many people think 3rd party themes are so safe. They're not. Anything from wp.org is safe and most of the big, premium 3rd party suppliers can be trusted (within reason), but I would trust any other theme developer as far as I could comfortably spit a large rat. Most of the themes on the aggregation sites (themeforest and so on) are rife with encoded links and other crap you really don't want. Install the TAC plugin (Theme Authenticity Checker) - and Exploit Scanner while you're at it. Those will spot any dodgy stuff, though if I remember correctly, the latter is less user-friendly.
I once added about a dozen free third-party themes to a site (from the aggregator places) to try them out - all but one came up with dodgy encoded links. I may have been incredibly unlucky or the landscape may have changed since then, but I would still check every single non-WP.org download very thoroughly.
No you are right, no unlucky. You should thoroughly check any theme you are using, it will most likely be safe, but there are themes out there you should watch out for, spammy links, etc..
I wouldn't trust all third-party themes either. Especially, the one's from little-known vendors. Check out the coding, especially if it's written in a messy way -- there might be hidden links without "nofollow" leading ... somewhere. If there's too many of 'em -- it's no good. I'd suspect (and won't install) any third-party theme with less than 100k downloads.
Agree with TIEro. You can only get safe free theme from wordpress(dot)org. I used to get big problems when installing theme I downloaded from somewhere outside wordpress(dot)org and boom! So many bad-encrytped code within theme's files that ruined my site, or even my hosting. So be careful of free themes. TAC plugins which was mentioned by TIEro is a good plugin to check how safe your theme is. Good luck!