What is the safest way to pirate without spending money. - eviltoast

Honestly, im scared to get into piracy because im afraid of getting in trouble or failing, basically im worried for no reason. I also have some random questions about piracy.

  1. should downloaded things be put on a internal or external hard drive. Because my external hard drive can be weird at times and i know some files required them to be installed internally.

  2. is there a way to help out the piracy community without breaking any rules or breaking the bank?

  3. are direct downloads safer or torrent, or something else?

that is all i have at the moment but feel free to add on to this if you wish too.