P2P Software for the Mac?

NeptalTim asks: "I've recently started using the Mac as my primary computer again after a hiatus of several years. All 'switch' jokes aside, I'm liking it very much, except for the decided lack of good P2P software. I always used Kazaa on Windows, but the best app I've found for the Mac is Limewire, which is a tad slow to say the least. What do Slashdot readers in the Mac community use for P2P?" I've been using iSwipe for a short amount of time and have found it useful. It's no WinMX, but it works. What other P2P programs have you found that you like?

Comments

iSwipe

[sydlexic]

seriously. I love this name. it says, "hey, lawyers, come and get me! nya nya nya!" it also sounds like "asswipe" if your from the right geography.

Acquisition

[Randar the Lava Liza]

Acquisition is great! Supports all the new gnutella updates such as ultrapeers. Much faster than Limewire, much nicer looking, and I've had better results with it as well.

Neo is a shadow client to Kazaa. It unfortunately doesn't actually log you into Kazaa, but rather is used to query ranges of IP's looking for Kazaa clients. It then sends searches to these clients directly, rather than to the nodes. Still, it can be very useful.

Re:Acquisition

[TiMac]

Ditto this. I use both Acquisition and Neo for P2P services. I still want a Blubster client and a REAL Kazaa client would be nice...but these two apps together serve the purposes very well.

Also, there is a Hotline Client for OS X, and Carracho is exclusively Mac (but similar to Hotline), and there is now a NeoModus Direct Connect client for OS X--if you prefer this model of sharing.

MacSlash just asked the same question

[pikester]

Check the results of the article there.

Google

[Mr_Person]

This doesn't have to do with Macs, but I hadn't heard of the WinMX program before, so I did a Google search on it, and the first Paid Ad that came up was:

Winmx - Downloading unauthorized files is illegal.
www.MusicUnited.org Find Legal Digital Music Services HERE!

Thought that was kinda interesting.

So many to choose from...

[xenofalcon]

I've found LimeWire to be way too unstable--it can't handle too many files, and it's slow. However, it does manage to connect to other peers better than other software that I've sampled.

Acquisition is a neat idea, but it doesn't work too well. Not much of an interface, either.

MacPhex is cool, and I like its interface. It crashes on me whenever I try to change the port that it listens on, and it hasn't been able to hold a connection well.

iSwipe is okay if you're searching, but I wasn't able to download some songs from OpenNap when I tried--I don't think it has a very good grasp of the protocol. It also limits you to sharing only 100 files on Gnutella.

I do like Drumbeat X, although that's OpenNap-only, and you have to pay for it. It's kind of slow (only when you're sharing many files), but it works well.

Direct Connect

[sebi]

It seems like this one has been out on the windows side of the computing world for quite some time. The OSX client is pretty new, but it is really nice. You connect to a chat room or hub and can then search download from the other participants in that room. There are not to many mac rooms at the moment, but media content is plattform agnostic anyway. Get it at www.neo-modus.com

And I know that you shouldn't steal music. Up until now I never did. But I happen to own an iPod and it really pisses me off, when I can't put the music from a legally obtained cd on it just because some record companies think that they are funny. Copy protection won't stop me from stealing music - it will me get started.

Xnap

[dont_stand_so_close_]

Like WinMX but Mac OS X..

Written in Java, and Fast, But not the most stable.

You can find it here:

http://xnap.sourceforge.net/

Re:Xnap

[usfGPM]

I second Xnap. I just started using it about a week ago and have been very happy with the results so far. Acquisition is still one of my favorites, too.

I recently tried out the (new?) edonkey client for OS X called mldonkey. Check it out at http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/mldonkey/. There are some mac specific things for edonkey at http://homepage.mac.com/michelmoreau.

good luck.

Re:Don't steal music

[blankmange]

Why is it only music that is concerned when someone brings up P2P? We could be sharing video clips of our kids' birthday parties, or databases of our favorite holiday recipes....

Nevermind.....Yeah, we are stealing music....

Re:Don't steal music

[orangesquid]

Its wrong and it hurts musicians and people in the industry.

Hell, man, I would *LOVE* it if my band started getting traded on P2P software. We're an underexposed, underbooked multi-genre band from Delaware, and we just want an audience beyond our friends and friends' friends...
(fz.os.us.eu.org if you're curious)

Mac P2P Software List

[Genesishep]

There is no shortage of P2P file sharing clients for the Mac. In fact one of the first clients was Mac only for some time (Hotline). This is a short OS X only list.

Gnutella Clients: MacPhex, Mactella, Limewire, Fern, Acquisition (one of my favorites). iSwipe

Kazaa client: Neo (not a full client but it works)

Napster/OpenNap clients: XNap, also iSwipe

Hotline Clients: Frogblast, HotCocoa, Pitbull Pro, Zombie, FineLine, Heidrun, iSwipe(again), Ripcord.

Others:

KDX (a new and really very nice Mac/Win compatible P2P server/client. Great if you can ignore the immaturity of it's developers.

Carracho: A Mac only P2P client/server. Works very well.

Direct Connect: DirectConnect, Java DirectConnect

There are a ton of other options that I'm not listing but to be honest I could be here for a lot longer and "It's a Wonderful Life" is on....so Happy Holidays and happy downloading.

=^Genesis^=