Guest Deeswift Posted August 7, 2004 Share Posted August 7, 2004 .:. FILE SHARING PROGRAMS / P2P .:. Before you read this, please remember that sharing certain files is illegaland can lead to prosecution in some cases. Also remember that by downloading files, you are depriving the author of their royalties. OK, that's the moral issues out of the way. Here's a rundown of the more popular file sharing applications and some of their pros and cons: _______________________ KAZAA MEDIA DESKTOP Website: Kazaa OVERVIEW: I should make it clear that I'm talking about the original Kazaa NOT Kazaa Lite. Kazaa is without doubt the most popular file sharing program on the Net. However, everybody should be aware that when you install it, there are several unsavoury files put onto your pc at the same time. Kazaa makes money from advertising, so they use spyware to generate revenue. For the user, this means pop up advertisements, privacy issues and a possible slowing down of internet speed. If you attempt to remove the spyware using a program such as Adaware, Kazaa will not work and will need to be reinstalled. Also, virus writers are aware of Kazaa's popularity and therefore write viruses specifically targetting Kazaa users. Virus scan everything you download using this software. PROS: Largest user base of any file sharing program.Fast multi-source downloads.Download any file type.Resume partial downloads at a later date.Ability to message other users.Ability to preview certain file types from within the program. CONS: Spyware! A major reason for not choosing Kazaa.Security issues. Can be used to track browsing habits.Viruses are rife on the Kazaa network.Uses a "participation level" system that can be detrimental to downloading speeds.Many fake files that are not what they appear to be.When Kazaa is uninstalled the spyware remains, as do other remnants of the program. OVERALL: Avoid at all costs! _______________________ KAZAA LITE K++ Website: ? OVERVIEW: In short, Kazaa Lite is Kazaa without all the unwanted extras. It has many extra features not present in Kazaa and is highly recommended. The interface is basically identical to that of Kazaa and it works in the same way. PROS: No spyware and pop-up advertising.Connects to the same network as Kazaa itself with fast multi-source downloading.Participation level set to maximum rating of 1000 hence faster downloads.Automatically increases search results.Download any file type.Resume partial downloads at a later date.Come with various useful added tools such as AVI Preview.Ability to preview even more file types than Kazaa.Can install a "hosts" file onto your pc blocking ads and pop-ups while browsing.Built in download accelerator.Ability to message other users.Supports sig2dat links.Blocks RIAA and other IP addresses associated with legal issues of file sharing. CONS: Suffers from the same virus threats as Kazaa.Many fake files that are not what they appear to be. OVERALL: Kazaa Lite is what Kazaa should have been. Download it now! _______________________ WIN MX Website: Win MX OVERVIEW: Win MX is a spyware free multi-source (in certain cases) file sharing application. It is a feature rich program, with many options not available in other similar applications. Win MX has been around for quite a while now and has a large user base, although it is dwarfed by Kazaa's mighty Fasttrack Network. By default, it connects to it's own peer-to-peer network, but it can also be configured to connect to an Opennap server. PROS: Compact download.Very stable connection to other users.Customisable interface.Fast multi-source downloads when connected to it's own peer-to-peer network.Sizeable user base.Download any file type.Resume partial downloads at a later date.Ability to message other users.Has chat rooms, with the added ability to create your own.Enables you to connect to Opennap servers.Full control of incoming and outgoing bandwidth.Ability to preview a file type in it's default application.Ability to filter search results.Has a whole host of extra options for power users.Informs the user of available updates to the program. CONS: No multi-source downloading from Opennap servers.Many users seem unwilling to share which can leave you in an endless queue for your file.Can be a bit daunting to novice users.Lacks the variety of files available on other programs. OVERALL: If you want to download obscure music then this isn't really the program for you. The seemingly endless queues can also put you off. However, despite it's faults, Win MX is a sturdy, powerful application and for users with a certain taste in music it is excellent. Give it a try! _______________________ SOULSEEK Website: Soulseek OVERVIEW: Soulseek was designed with fans of electronic music in mind. It is spyware free and connects to it's own network. If you want to download obscure music and mixes then this really is the place to look. The users are far more open to sharing and trading then on say Win MX. There are two main downsides to this program however. The first is the stability of the server, or should I say lack of it. On many occasions users are unable to connect to the server and when they do it occasionally disconnects them at random intervals. Also, the search facility sometimes fails to yield any results at all, which is again a server issue. The second problem, although not as important, is the lack of multi-source downloading. This can cause painfully slow downloads. Another important thing to note is that you must make sure you only download Soulseek from the website above. The old Soulseek site has been hijacked by somebody in Germany, and attempts to install a nasty dialler when visited. For that reason, obviously I won't post the link. PROS: Compact download.Download any file type.Ability to download entire folders at a time.Resume partial downloads at a later date.Customisable user profile.Full control of incoming and outgoing bandwidth.Excellent variety of music.Chat rooms and private messaging available.Friends list.Recommendations based upon your own personal tastes.Wishlist to enable you to try and find obscure files automatically.Ability to check the server status from the website. CONS: Unstable server.Frequent updates to the software.No multi-source downloading leading to possible slow downloads.Clumsy interface.Searches can crash the program if too many results are found.Users who donate via Paypal attain priveleges and can jump queues. (Could be seen as a pro.) OVERALL: From reading the above you would probably assume it isn't worth downloading this program. However, despite it's faults Soulseek is a gold mine for music. If you can persevere with the connection problems and slow downloads on occasion, you will wonder how you ever lived without it! Highly recommended. _______________________ BIT TORRENT Website: BitTorrent OVERVIEW: BitTorrent is a peer to peer protocol for distributing files. It works quite differently to other file sharing applications. There is no searching or chatting to be done here. All you do is install the client, then click on a .torrent link on a web page to start the download. While the file is downloading, it is also simultaneously uploading to other users attempting to obtain the same file. This is done in an attempt to maximise download speeds for all users. Resuming of downloads is permitted and no spyware is installed along with the main program. PROS: Very simple to use.Download any file type.Resume partial downloads at a later date.All files are verified upon completion of download. CONS: Links to downloads must be obtained from web pages as no searching is allowed.No control over bandwidth unless source code is modified.May be slow if few file sources are available. OVERALL: BitTorrent is certainly not for everyone. You may find a website with some superb links on it for use with this program or you may have no luck at all. In the simplicity stakes BitTorrent certainly excels, but I think the majority of users would prefer the extra features provided by other file sharing programs. It's certainly worth giving it a try to see what you think as the user base is growing daily. _______________________ EMULE Website: eMule OVERVIEW: PROS: CONS: OVERALL: _______________________ Limewire Pro Website: Limewire OVERVIEW:The Limewire P2P program has been in the business for a while. Lately, with more and more p2p programs closing, Limewire as well as other programs have taken the spotlight. Basically, it's just like any other P2P. I'm not sure which networks it connects too, but it's the same basic principal in terms of people sharing files and the more people sharing equals a quicker download. Ya'll know the drill. Limewires software it self is pretty nice and clean. In all honesty, don't mess with the free Limewire, you'll need Limewire Pro, which you will have to buy or maybe you can get it somewhere else. Anyways Limewire Pro, is pretty much ad and spyware free. Also, it supports different skins (nothing special), as well as allow you to connect to more users to make your downloads run faster. The layout of Limewire is also extremely easy to use. If you take a look at the screen shots on the Limewire site. Everything is straight foward, you can search for programs, video, audio, and everything inbetween. Limewire is also compatible with Itunes, for all you Ipod nerds out there. So if you open up Itunes you can actually view all the downloads you have received through Limewire. Limewire also has a fairly large user base. You can find almost all popular music, interms of obscure music though, I'm not really sure. Limewire really supports the P2P of the masses and not the DJ persay. So if you need the Top 40's you're golden, if not, you'll have a little more trouble. The other con would be, the file wuality of the music. Unlike soulseek, where i could always get like at least 192 VBR or some type of high quality mp3, in Limewire you're stuck with what everyone else deems good aka 192.PROS:FastCleanEasy to UseLarge number of UsersCONS:Hard to find obscure musicFile quality of Music, You won't be finding any 320 VBROVERALL:A quality P2P to add to your others. An adequate replacement for many P2P's and is bound to grow een more with the loss of other programs._______________________ WORK IN PROGRESS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted August 20, 2004 Share Posted August 20, 2004 One I meant to add to that list is Trustyfiles. It connects to the same network as Kazaa/Kazaa Lite and also two Gnutella networks, simultaneously. It will also handle torrent files but I'd rather use Azureus for that. I've had some decent results from it actually and the downloads usually start pretty quickly. It contains no spyware, although when you initially start it up, it does cause a pop up to appear and there are some small ads displayed at the bottom of the program only while it is running. It doesn't install anything nasty such as Gain or Cydoor though. In a nutshell, it's a Kazaa clone with no spyware and added Gnutella/torrent functionality. It's worth a look........... http://www.trustyfiles.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iexist Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 i believe kazaa is full of viruses... whats the hot p2p program nowadays? other than soulseek.. something more user friendly for my girl... parents.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 eMule kicks much ass. Not easy to use though, but worth persevering. This is a really old thread, btw. Ought to be deleted or re-written. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iexist Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 yeah i know... i thought of starting a new thread and then ask what i just did, but i decided not to.. so eMule eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 eMule Plus: http://emuleplus.info/ Direct link: http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourcefor...c.Installer.exe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iexist Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 dope, thanks dee. no spyware in this huh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 No chance. There are some dodgy sites on the net offering versions of eMule with spyware and also ones that charge for it, much the same as what happens with most P2P apps, including Kazaa, etc. eMule Plus is an improvement on the original eMule and definately contains no nasties. Been a long time user of this and it's great, just takes a small amount of learning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 Some tips on eMule: You need shitloads of patience. The download speeds seem to depend on how much you upload. Set your upload speed to 11. Seems to increase download speeds. No need to share hundreds of files, I think eMule Plus warns you if you share over 1000, but I only share none-copyrighted material on eMule, and there's onl;y about 140 files. This is for my own security, mainly. Google for some guides, they contain a lot of good tips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iexist Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 word, yeah im noticing the compications with all these different servers and what not... gonna have to explain all this to the miss'. thx again deE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 Ok mate. if you have any problems ask here, I'm sure we can work it out between us. Sorry for the complexity of the program, just stick with it and it'll be good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soccarrfreak Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 I have limewire and it works pretty well. Not much adware if any, preview files, download almost any file, doesnt crash at all really, download from many sources, easy to use. its similar to kazaalite/kazaa, but i downloaded it cause kazaalite stopped working for me for some reason, even after formatting my drive. limewire is better anyways. you should look into it, i think it would be a family/parent friendly program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 Maybe you updated Windows to SP2 and then Kazaa stopped working? I think I heard something about Kazaa being incompatible. It's not a bad thing anyway because you don't need Kazaa. eMule Plus will find anything you need, it doesn't crash at all, there's no adware. Seems like you don't mind a little adware and stuff though. which is fair enough if you enjoy using LimeWire, but I see no need to put up with that kinda stuff when other apps are "clean". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soccarrfreak Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 idk, doesnt seem to have too much adaware. probably a little but not too much. and i have win2k, and sp4. always have when i had kazaalite. just stopped working. could have been from another program i installed causing a conflict or something, but i doubt it. maybe ill switch to emule if its better. eMule plus is the best of them all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 I haven't tried all of them, so I can't say. I like it a lot, I can find pretty much anything I search for. It's especially good for finding rare music. Soulseek is good, but I don't like the search system, you gotta wait so long and sift through the results, much the same as Kazaa but slower. With eMule, searches are instant. If you want albums, just search for zip/rar files only, you can pretty much guarantee you'll get well encoded albums all zipped up rather than loosely compiled by random people and random sources. Quality seems higher on eMule because of this, it's easy to weed out the shit and find the good stuff. The drawback is it takes time before your uploads start, but this is where patience comes into it. Just leave it to do it's thing in the background. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phology Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 i d/l eMULE lst weekand dont think iv set it up rightim at college now but so i'll have to check wat the prob is wen i get bak (if someones willing to help that is?) :$ lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 I'll help with whatever I can mate. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phology Posted March 11, 2005 Share Posted March 11, 2005 cheers dude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milk Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 Clownstyle pointed me to eMule, as I needed a file.Yet I cant seem to download anything, when I click on my desired file all I seem to get is "waiting" under the status tab.Kinda confusing hehe, though I have noticed there are a load of great files to download from this app. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milk Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 (edited) Cancel that I got it to work, man eMule is awesome.My downloads are super slow though. Edited March 12, 2005 by milk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 Once again, patience is the key to eMule! For new users it takes time but it's really worth it. Problem is, most people want stuff instantly, which is understandable. Once eMule is running, best just to forget about it and come back later. I have albums downloading for weeks or even months sometimes, I mean really hard to find shit, files with a single source only, etc. Then again, I have had albums finish downloading within the hour. It's all about how popular the file is, how many sources it has, and of course your download / upload ratio, as well as other people's connection speeds. Test it out by downloading something with hundreds of sources and you'd see a big difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milk Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 Ok cheers Dee. Ill just leave it on and wait a while. I did notice download speeds increased when I downloaded some DJ shadow stuff, but I wanted some obscure VSTis I guess Ill leave it and wait for them to finish.Patience is a virtue heh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soccarrfreak Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 depends on your share ratio? does taht mean the closer you are to 1:1, the faster it lets you download? becaues i have never encountered that in other p2p's, but i havent tried emule yet either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Deeswift Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 I think it does work like this, yes. Do a Google search for eMule FAQ's or guides and you'll find out all about it. I think eMule is kinda like a cross between Bit Torrent and a regular P2P app. You gotta upload to download, pretty much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rygon Posted March 12, 2005 Share Posted March 12, 2005 a site i found rather interesting...its to do with what exactly gets installed with p2p applications.i was shiocked to find one of the shortest licenses you "have" to read takes a staggering 18mins http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/p2p/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.