from an interesting article over the legality of file sharing called "The Race to Kill Kazaa" posted at Wired News at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/kazaa.html :

"The servers are in Denmark. The software is in Estonia. The domain is registered Down Under, the corporation on a tiny island in the South Pacific. The users - 60 million of them - are everywhere around the world. The next Napster? Think bigger. And pity the poor copyright cops trying to pull the plug."

I've used Kazaa: it's a nice program and all, but I've had much more success with Bearshare  (http://bearshare.com ).  Another popular program is WinMX (http://winmx.com ), though again, I recommend Bearshare over all others.  The only thing I don't really like about Bearshare is its security: you can obtain any users IP address that you want!

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear about other peoples success with file sharing programs and which ones they prefer.

I don't like using Kazaa because it has a stupid name. What's next? "Shazam"?

Like Hooked on Phonics, WinMX wirked fir me! :

Kazaa lite 4.2.x seems to be the choice at the moment. IP blocking for RIAA and such corps. that they are aware of, along with the fact that it keeps your lists hidden. They are trying to do everything they can.

However, I did come across a site http://www.es5.com, however, I haven't used it, or come to trust it just yet. Its claims are nice, but again, I'm not sold yet.

Then there is always falling back on foreign websites and IRC.

[quote author=dookiak link=board=16;threadid=2102;start=0#msg13845 date=1063745377]
IP blocking for RIAA and such corps[/quote]

personally, I'm not very fond of the RIAA, nor of their behavior of targeting individuals for using file sharing programs. Their tactics are overly-aggressive and unwarranted, and if you ask me, they got what they had coming to them when their site was, ummm, renovated by individuals not very happy with the RIAA's actions

I've used several file sharing programs, but am still hooked on Bearshare. I can always get what I need with it.

Kazaa lite 4.2 sounds good... I'm not sure if I've tried this recent version, though with previous versions, I didn't have much luck. I'll try to find out something about http://www.es5.com , but like you, I'm wary of installing their product just yet until I've heard more about them.

I've heard it said that gnutella will soon die. So what's next?

I've just downloaded eMule but not tried it.
Never used file transfer s/w! I feel a bit of an ass!

A bit of info from it:-

Welcome to eMule, a filesharing client based on the eDonkey2000© network.


Visit us at
http://www.emule-project.net
and
http://sourceforge.net/projects/emule
or
the IRC chatroom, #emule on irc.emule-project.net

All the best Bill.
I heard of it from dookiak on the software board.

As for the use of Emule for music downloading, I'm not sure I'd use it as my difinitive source. The sheer numbers are just not there. The amount of users. It might take a lot longer time to get a song, time most people don't like to waste. Personally, I know I will wait a lot longer, days, for a good program, where as a song I get impatient. I usually expect to have it in like a minute or two. Emule doesn't deliver that speed, typically. That is where I have not given up programs like Kazaa. They still have numbers.

However, an update on the music industry in general. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed, but today I went to buy a new CD and had a great discovery. Yesterday, the new Bubba Sparxxx album was released. To my pleasure, when I went to buy it today it only cost me $7!! The music industry is finally learning. As well yesteday, the new DMX CD came out, and that album has 23 songs, plus came with a DVD. That CD cost $10! I bought both of them, something I would not have done without the price cuts. Now, I still think it is just a bit steep, but if they would have CD's averaging about $6 a piece, I would certainly buy many more.

In support of music filesharing however, let me say that had it not been for the internet, I certainly would not have bought the Bubba Sparxxx CD. I was never really a fan of him, howeverr, I heard that his new album was suppoesd to be really good. So, about a month ago I downloaded the entire thing (1 nice .rar file on Emule, btw). After listening to it about 3 times, I was sold! I was in the record stores last week trying to convince them to sell me an advanced copy, even though I already "had" the album. I thought it was really good, from an artist I would never have supported otherwise without the net, and wanted to actually pay for it. When I actually picked it off the rack, a guy was looking at it. I said to him "Its a really great album".. he said "yeah, I got a few tracks off the net, i really liked it". Ok, there was 2 people just right there who bought it thanks to programs like Kazaa. Understandably, some people are not as supportive, and just like to steal because they are distasteful like that, but for those of us who REALLY appreciate music, it is a wonderful thing.

[quote author=Doug_E._Fresh link=board=16;threadid=2102;start=0#msg10669 date=1044228352]
I don't like using Kazaa because it has a stupid name. What's next? "Shazam"?

Like Hooked on Phonics, WinMX wirked fir me! :
[/quote]

I changed my mind. I use Kazaa Lite v2.10 and I always find multiple users sharing the files I'm looking for. Plus, it doesn't contain the spyware that the standard Kazaa comes bundled with.

hmm, I have Kazaa Lite but haven't really used it much (I've been using bearshare instead), but if you recommend it, Doug, then I'll certainly give it another try.

Friend of mine (sic) has gravitated from using Bitcomet to µTorrent which incorporates masking for those ISPs that throttle torrent traffic and it has other specific option settings that BitComet does not have such as limiting upload speed (minimally 25k/s), updating trackers and more. I believe that Bitcomet has masking also but you have to turn it on. I could be mistaken about this. As I've reported elsewhere, you can find more specifics at http://www.slyck.com and you could go to the sites for the respective torrent clients. In general I find that µTorrent works faster and more reliably than Bitcomet. Besides updating trackers, sometimes you can turn off µTorrent, wait a bit, then turn it back on and see things speed up (my friend tells me).

In Napster's prime, one could search for and find what ever one wanted (usually) quite easily. One might think that this is a failing of Bittorrent file sharing but http://www.isohunt.com appears to level the playing field. My friend reports that it is amazing how even though the start of a torrent may be quite old the files are still available. You might have to have some patience though as the downloads may not start for a while in µTorrent. Just give it over night and you are liable to be pleasantly surprised. Isohunt allows you to sort the search results in various ways and my buddy suggests sorting by number of seeders for the best results.

Still haven't found "Heavy Watergate," one of the "Phenomenon Archives" series though others from that interesting program are available as torremts. "Heavy Watergate" is still available via Google videos at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=22...LD+FUSION&hl=en .

I only found one of the Phenomenon series to be pretty far fetched so-far, concerning Mayan evidence of alien visitation. I've yet to find the one on CIA involvment in illicit drug trade in the US, though I've read some about it. The one on "Monopoly Men" is quite enlightening and helps to fill out and expand the Russo film "America: Freedom to Fascism" which I highly suggest. You can find it on Google videos at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4...o+fascism&hl=en . The lesson I find most cogent of these two last films is that we do have nothing but anarchy on planet earth right now (though there are some really strange definitions of that term by people who swallow the propaganda that we really do have some governments right now). We have a "gangster's paradise" (a distopia actually) that is terminal, no less, which is why we must find a viable alternative before our biosphere collapses.

"Feed your head"

CIA and the drug trade? Yeah they are involved, they manufactured LSD as a truth syrum and distributed 2500 doses of it. The proof is the law suits people have filed and won against the CIA.

If I remember correctly it was cocaine, something about a couple of kids being murdered to silence them after they saw an agent transfer some "goods." This got me to look at Michael Ruppert's site, http://www.fromthewilderness.com and I learned they are shutting down business and Michael is quite ill. He released a lot of data on CIA drug running that is still archived at the site. He was also one of the first to come out and claim that 9-11 was an inside job, reporting on an envelope that was sealed before the act with a letter that detailed that it was going to happen. Probably some data on that at the site too. He used to be a highly rated investigator with the Los Angeles Police and moved to Canada later after threats to his life piled up, something like that.

I think I've said it elsewhere, but the best file-sharing program is currently Emule ( http://www.emule-project.net ) and a modification called Emule Extreme ( http://www.emule-mods.de/?mods=xtreme ). I would not recommend Bearshare anymore.

I still run last version of Edonkey. There is simple way to prevent that Edonkey connect to home site and shut down your Edonkey through hosts file.
Actually Emule and Edonkey connect to the same servers but i like Edonkey more because of his simplicity.

FlashGet all the way for me, followed up by FullDC.


I agree with you entirely, and I am actually very interested in the topic in general.

If you have some suggestions on building a better society, then by all means contact me and we will have a chat

FlashGet the file download manager? That's not P2P.

Hehe, I was sure that someone would say that. Honestly, you should avoid making unverified claims like that

Flashget supports both Bit torrent and eDonkey downloads so it is p2p.

That's pretty neat. But then what do you use to search the eDonkey network? My only experience with FlashGet is as a FF plugin that I rather quickly uninstalled.

I haven't actually used eDonkey or the corresponding feature in FlashGet before (I mainly use it for Bittorrent), but I think there are sites that offer indexed links for eDonkey downloads.

I like the FF plugin a LOT. Very useful and convenient.
Though I have to admit that the first time I tried it my reaction to it was identical to yours.