Free Themes Bad For Your Site?? / Customizing Free Ones

Ok so I got though the 5 minute install.. twice!. In fact I got stuck on my regular mac for 8 hours trying to figure out what wasn’t working but when I got to my 2nd one, it took 2 minutes if even that.

In any case I found 2 articles on the net about free word press themes and the fact that free has a price. That price is the fact that you don’t know what coding is in those templates that can hurt your site. So the 3 hours I spent surfing the net and downloading free wordpress themes is in vain.

So how is anyone able to tell which templates are safe and which aren’t???

This issue seriously concerns me and so I’m trying to customize my own but the find the information either overwhelming or lacking for beginner WordPress users like myself who have no knowledge of code and prefer not to. I’m more the super user type who does well learning most software though I still struggle with Photoshop because I just haven’t given it enough time.

If it is as simple as opening these PHP files and searching for any “https://” Links.. then please let me know.

So thats my questions.. How do you know the wordpress theme you downloaded is safe? And secondly what are easiest ways to customize themes you can find on www.remarpro.com (I assume those are safe and free of links and other nefarious code)

I really wish the “Look” factor of wordpress and customizing was totally separate from the SEO and performance factors of these themes as I have learned so far.

Best regards
Just another mac wordpress user