Both SMAPI and another Stardew mod manager gave my pc viruses after I downloaded them. Any CLEAN versions out there or is there another mod manager that works, won't give my PC bugs so I can use some of the more complex mods?
unless you downloaded it from some unknown site, its not a virus. Your antivirus is probably just flagging it as a false positive. Also, SMAPI isn't a mod manager. https://github.com/Pathoschild/SMAPI/releases Go here. I guarantee you its not a virus.
http://canimod.com/for-players/faqs#trojan Nope, kaspersky is wrong. False positives are common with a lot of community made programs actually.
If you truly feel uncomfortable using a pre-compiled version due to your anti-virus wrongly reporting it as a trojan, you can manually compile SMAPI, but honestly, your anti-virus is reporting SMAPI as a trojan because, from a certain standpoint it can be seen as one, SMAPI hacks into SDV so that mods work. Your anti-virus is just wrong in reporting it as malicious software...
I've had the same issue with both Windows defender and Avast, I fixed this by adding them as exceptions in both programs and now its running perfectly fine. Obviously I've downloaded them from the proper source so can trust it.