You are only as safe as you let yourself be.
I've had no issues with most of the sites in the mega thread, and if you utilise a bit of common sense you should be fine.
Get a VPN, download Malwarebytes and check the torrent comments before you download anything. New torrent with zero comments and no way for you to verify? If it's not a site you have grown to trust, give it a miss for a week. Even if you do trust the site, if something in your head says "this isn't right", just wait or find an alternative.
Most other content is easy because hiding malware inside of a movie torrent is more difficult and easier to detect. Games require you to pay a bit of attention because I can name any malware I want "setup.exe" and a lot of people will mindlessly open it expecting a game to install.
For what it's worth, I used FitGirl when I was a student and didn't have any troubles with her packs. Not sure if anything has changed in the last ~4 years though.