More of a key here is where you are going to download, and what you are downloading. Typically download sites that offer the "hot stuff" are filled with spawning windows that want to trick you into downoading junk. I would go to malwarebytes.org, download Malwarebytes, and run it to clean any malware. A virus does damage. Spyware is just annoying doing things like hijacking browsers and such.

Main thing is to make sure you download only from reputable sites.