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Shareaza 2.0 Released Under GPL

RageEar writes "Today it was announced that the latest version of Shareaza, a popular P2P application for Windows, was released under the GPL. Currently the source code is hosted by the Shareaza servers, but the announcement makes mention of the code becoming a project on Sourceforge. The binaries are still available for Windows only, but I imagine it is only a matter of time before a Linux port emerges."

74 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. anybody compiled it yet by jonasmit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    on Linux/BSD? Do any ports currently exist?

    1. Re:anybody compiled it yet by Izago909 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Last time I checked in it was built on .NET. I'm not sure if that's the case anymore, but if it is, some serious revisions must be made before it's truly cross platform.

    2. Re:anybody compiled it yet by sameb · · Score: 4, Informative

      LimeWire is (and has been for the past 4 years) open source -- GPL'd and all.

    3. Re:anybody compiled it yet by Chyeld · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except of course, Limewire only handles one of the many protocols that Sharezilla does. Thus reducing the argument to "don't even bother, you can do 10% of what Sharezilla does with this other bloated Java app."

    4. Re:anybody compiled it yet by sameb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You can do 100% of what Shareaza tries to do with LimeWire -- that is, search for and download files. The network it runs on is implementation details. You can in fact say that Shareaza is bloated for adding support for multiple networks instead of making one network work as good as it possibly can.

      Bram Cohen has complained that Shareaza's BitTorrent implementation is terrible. Gnutella developers have complained that Shareaza's Gnutella implementation is outdated & that it wrongly sends tons of "Gnutella2" packets to clients that don't want them.

      Would you prefer a client that picks a goal and makes it work amazingly well, or a client that tries to do lots of things so-so?

    5. Re:anybody compiled it yet by Nahor · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, it's not built on .NET, it's regular C++. It was programmed using Visual Studio .NET and uses MFC for the GUI.

    6. Re:anybody compiled it yet by sameb · · Score: 2, Informative

      SWT is definitely an option, the problem is that LimeWire would sacrifice the "run anywhere" beauty. There's LimeWire users on Windows, Linux, OSX, Mac Classic, OS/2, SunOS, etc.... Until SWT is ported to every platform, LimeWire's going to continue using Swing.

      Another option is an abstraction layer between Swing & SWT -- there's some projects (SwingWT, to name one) that are doing that, but it's incomplete and LimeWire won't compile right now with it.

      Swing is pushed to its limits (and sometimes beyond) right now with LimeWire, painting progress bars & icons on tabs, user-configurable change-at-runtime themes, tooltips & rowstripes for tables & lists, real-time statistics graphs, etc... a port to SWT (or an abstraction layer of SWT) would be a massive project.

    7. Re:anybody compiled it yet by Chyeld · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would prefer an app that allows me to access the multple, fragmented, and previously incompatable, networks used for P2P access today.

      Perhaps you only go for the files that have 2000 sources avalaible to connect to, I don't. Having the ability to use all four networks to grab the same file, and not having to worry that if the file drops off the radar on one of the networks that the entire time spent downloading it is wasted is much more important than worrying about whether the developer 'plays well with others'. I could care less if scared cows are being challenged, frankly each and everyone of the 'core' Gnutella developers have tried to hijack the protcol at least once themselved. I could care less if the current implementation of Bittorrent is less than spetacular. It'll get better. What I care about is interopability. Something Limewire has never had.

      On the other hand, I currently use eMule. ^_^

    8. Re:anybody compiled it yet by vDave420 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Gnutella developers have complained that Shareaza's Gnutella implementation is outdated & that it wrongly sends tons of "Gnutella2" packets to clients that don't want them.

      No kidding! (Disclaimer, IAA Gnutella Developer)

      I myself am in the process of adding Udp support to BearShare, and right outta the gate, various Shareaza nodes begin blasting tons of unsolicited "Mike's Protocol Udp packets" at me.

      Granted, there is a generic problem of random traffic when using Udp, but I don't see "random traffic", I see "lots of unsolicited Non-Gnutella, Udp MikeProtocol packets".

      Grrr...
      Not to mention the appropriation of the well-known name "gnutella" for a non-gnutella protocol.

      No, in short, Shareaza is more a "jack of all trades" that never (IMHO) had really great support for any of the protocols it implemented.

      From my own experience, at least, the Gnutella and BitTorrent implementations aren't that great, and tend to lag pretty severly behind the mono-network clients. Can't really speak from personal experience with the ED2k and MP side, though. For all I know, those implementations work well enough.

      -dave-

      --
      The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
    9. Re:anybody compiled it yet by julesh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bram Cohen has complained that Shareaza's BitTorrent implementation is terrible

      Do you have a source for that? I'd actually heard the opposite, that he was pleased to see support being integrated into other software.

      Gnutella developers have complained that Shareaza's Gnutella implementation is outdated

      I think that's one of the primary reasons for the open sourcing -- the original developer doesn't have time to work on Gnutella support and hopes somebody else will step in to maintain this aspect.

      & that it wrongly sends tons of "Gnutella2" packets to clients that don't want them.

      I believe that is related to a bug that was fixed a while back, when version 2 GWebCache servers became commonly available.

      Would you prefer a client that picks a goal and makes it work amazingly well, or a client that tries to do lots of things so-so

      I've never actually found a client that works better than shareaza, for me. I switched to it from limewire a while back, and was definitely impressed with the improvement in quality I saw. The UI is more intuitive, the application is more responsive and uses less memory (a critical feature for an app you leave running in the background all the time, as I do). While it seems that Gnutella has improved since I switched (it now returns results a lot faster than it used to), the support for the edonkey and G2 networks is very useful... G2 does provide a wider choice when searching for rare files, I find, and edonkey is very useful for downloading larger files that few gnutella users seem to have.

    10. Re:anybody compiled it yet by Nahor · · Score: 2

      Don't confuse C++ and "Managed C++". Managed C++ is a C++ like language that is compiled to run on a .NET virtual machine. Regular C++ doesn't need a virtual machine to run.

      Visual Studio .NET supports both regular C++ and managed C++.
      If you see C++ and C# used together to describe a framework/compiler/..., chances are that it's really about managed C++.
      I didn't look at Mono but if they say that they have a C++ compiler, it's very likely that they actually have a managed C++ compiler.

    11. Re:anybody compiled it yet by Adam+Fisk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is perpetuating a common myth, namely that connecting to multiple networks translates into access to more files. It's a myth that makes sense on the face of it. It breaks down on the level of the searching protocols, however, and it's a myth that programs like Shareaza and Morpheus use as a marketing gimmick to get users to try their programs. Why is it a myth? It's a myth because all p2p networks have physical limits that prevent searches from reaching beyond certain numbers of computers without overloading the bandwidth capacity of every node on the network. "Gnutella2 (aka Mike's Protocol)", Gnutella, eDonkey, FastTrack, etc all face these physical limits. All of these networks are highly advanced at this point. The eDonkey and Gnutella search architectures in particular are extremely efficient. The MP architecture seems pretty good, but it's not specified very well and will require someone plugging through the source code to really have a look at how good it is. FastTrack is probably trailing all of the other networks at this point in terms of search efficiency. That said, none of these network are able to search beyond a million or so nodes for a given (rare) file simply because there's only so much bandwidth to go around, and we've already extracted most of the big efficiencies to be tweaked out of these architectures. The only way connecting to more networks can result in more files is if a client acts as a leech, if it connects to a network and sucks resources from it and contributes no resources back. This is precisely what Shareaza does with Gnutella and eDonkey. It connects as "leaves" to both networks to ensure that it does not have to contribute any resources while leeching off the other users of those networks to get files. Yick! Same thing the Morpheus folks do. Don't get me wrong, Mike is clearly a talented programmer and Shareaza has lots of great features, and Mike's generally a nice guy. These kinds of behaviors are just a little obnoxious though, and doesn't tend to make Shareaza any friends. I don't work for LimeWire any more, by the way. These are my own, completely independent views.

      --

      Adam Fisk

  2. a message from the riaa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    when you use file sharing apps the terrorists win

    1. Re:a message from the riaa by the_riaa · · Score: 5, Funny

      Stop speaking for us, idiot. [That's our job.] -the riaa

    2. Re:a message from the riaa by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 3, Funny
      when you use file sharing apps the terrorists win
      No, the terrorists win if they can plant the bomb and the counter-terrorist can't disarm it in time, or if they can kill all the counter-terrorists.
  3. do we really want OSS P2P apps? by musikit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    don't get me wrong... i am all for OSS. i run linux and mac etc. however if the wire protocol is open wouldn't it be easier for RIAA/MPAA/USGOV/ISPs to look at the data and block certain traffic/file names to "cover their own ass" or have evidence to prosecute you?

    musikit equips tin-foil hat.

    1. Re:do we really want OSS P2P apps? by yokimbo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wouldn't it be easier, as OSS, to thwart RIAA/etc attemps to mess with it. When you've got a determined community vs RIAA, I'm in favor of OSS.

    2. Re:do we really want OSS P2P apps? by BiggsTheCat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, Shareaza's protocols were already open; the Gnutella network spec and eDonkey network spec are already documented, even if the code isn't available.

      The big boys generally don't look at the data coming over the wire since it's too much of a hassle. It's far easier if they actually participate in the network and then watch who downloads from them.

      If you're really paranoid about it, though, you could engineer some crypto into the networks... assuming you can trust your peers and they agree to the same crypto. Security by obscurity of protocol rarely works.

      --

      Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. --Ford Prefect

    3. Re:do we really want OSS P2P apps? by sameb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You'd prefer security through obscurity?

      Open source clients & protocols, like LimeWire (on Gnutella) have made huge advances in the level of file-sharing, forcing other proprietary apps to play catch-up (and, in this case, probably playing a big part in making Shareaza go open source).

      The same logic behind wanting voting machines & encryption schemes to be open source applies to wanting p2p networks & clients as open source.

  4. Re:Better? by xsupergr0verx · · Score: 4, Informative

    No spyware, uses Gnutella2, Bittorrent, and eDonkey2k network. Pretty killer little toy.

    --

    Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
  5. Wow by Nascar_Geek · · Score: 5, Funny

    And Worst Program Name of the Year goes to: These guys - for "Shareaza"

    1. Re:Wow by lordDallan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I always thought the name was a play on Scheherazade, the heroine from "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights".

      Kind of like she told a thousand stories, there are a thousand (metaphorically) adventures in P2P downloading awaiting you, oh humble user.

    2. Re:Wow by tunabomber · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, but what popular filesharing app DOESN'T have a vomit-inducing moniker?

      KaZaA - Might have been good, but then they alternated that case of the letters to make them look all quirky and fun.

      Morpheus/Grokster - Embarrassing misuse of hacker lingo.

      All the other *ster's - just ripoffs of Napster, which wasn't the greatest name to start with anyways.

      WinMX - Oooh! That name is so creative! No other piece of software ever used the Win prefix in its name to denote that it runs on Windows!

      eDonkey and its variants - now thats a dumb-"ass" name

      Gnutella - named after a hazelnut spread with the approximate taste and consistency of crankcase sludge- with a "GNU" thrown in to keep RMS happy.

      KCeasy - Is this a play on the name "Ken Kesey"? Even if it isn't, I believe these people were on acid when they decided they would add their software to the long list of open source apps with cryptic, semi-acronymical names. Yes, I'm talking in your direction, giFT.

      --

      pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
    3. Re:Wow by JabberWokky · · Score: 4, Funny
      All the other *ster's - just ripoffs of Napster, which wasn't the greatest name to start with anyways.

      Yeah, but it was named that because Seth Green was taking a nap when Shawn Fanning stole the source from him (which all fit on a single floppy!).

      --
      Evan

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    4. Re:Wow by julesh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Their software sucks so they need help from outsiders.

      Have you actually used it? I find the user interface about the best of all the available non-spyware systems. It uses less CPU and memory time than most others (which _is_ important for a network server app). It works well on 4 different networks, each of which represents a different philosophy of how a P2P network should work.

      I really don't see what people have against it, other than political issues dating back to a bad choice the developer made when he chose the name 'Gnutella 2' for his own improved network, a system that is (at least partially) backward compatible with Gnutella.

  6. Linux port by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Cool, so finally I can get all the eyecandy and visual effects of Linux mixed with stability and performance of WinXP.

  7. And Soon... by Azureflare · · Score: 2, Interesting
    NOT on sourceforge.net. As soon as the DMCA notices arrive at sourceforge, it'll be taken down.

    This should be quite interesting to watch. Personally, I stopped using P2P apps because there's nothing I want these days. Also, I got one of those friendly notices from the MPAA, and I realized, that it seriously wasn't worth it.

    Any software I want, there's a free alternative for linux. None of the music that is coming out now interests me, so this p2p app is completely unappealing.

    1. Re:And Soon... by Otto · · Score: 4, Informative

      Shareaza doesn't do anything illegal. Doesn't contain any copyrighted code. There's no basis for a DMCA notice. It's just a P2P application, like many others that are also on sourceforge.

      --
      - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
    2. Re:And Soon... by bigberk · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Any software I want, there's a free alternative for linux. None of the music that is coming out now interests me, so this p2p app is completely unappealing.
      I agree with what you say. In the *NIX world, all the software we need is free. I don't need to buy from $corp, in fact I don't even need to steal from $corp. My desktop Linux installation is compatible with my hardware, and works fine.

      Pop music has been a big disappointment for me, so now I only listen to my campus radio stations. I don't buy CDs from $industry, and I don't download their music online. The $industry registers lost CD sales as Internet piracy, so they're either ignorant or deceptive. Either way... they're screwed in the long run if many do what I'm doing.

      I think this is the appropriate way to have an impact. It's legal, ethical, and even healthy for capitalism.
    3. Re:And Soon... by Anenga · · Score: 2, Insightful
      As soon as the DMCA notices arrive at sourceforge, it'll be taken down.
      Just like eMule (Or BitTorrent for that matter), right?
    4. Re:And Soon... by PMcGovern · · Score: 4, Informative

      If we (SourceForge.net) receive a DMCA request, which doesn't happen often, we begin a process outlined in our Terms of Service. We don't remove the project forever, only for a length of 10 days after the project admin has submitted a DMCA counter-claim.

      With the project 'PlayFair', the project admin never submitted a counter-claim...and hence the project was never restored.
      BTW: We host many p2p projects on SF.NET today.

      Pat-
      Pat@sf.net
      SourceForge.net

  8. Re:Better? by darth_MALL · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not too sure if this is what you were asking, but I think spyware is a non-issue with Sharezaa. This is from the PR:
    "it made some important technical improvements, broke some new ground with an original P2P network, "upped the ante" with many of its competitors and probably contributed to the growing trend away from "heavy spyware bundling".

  9. That's funny by writertype · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because every time my friend uses Shareaza, he tells me that there's quite a bit of other content GPLed there too: music, games, movies...

  10. Shareaza 2.0: Open Source by Compholio · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not to be cruel, but what makes Shareaza so cool that someone would go to the trouble to port it when we already have gtk-gnutella (http://gtk-gnutella.sourceforge.net/) that supports Shareaza?

    1. Re:Shareaza 2.0: Open Source by athakur999 · · Score: 5, Informative

      A quick look at gtk-gnutella's page shows that it only supports Gnutella. Shareaza supports EDonkey, BitTorrent, and it's own Gnutella2 as well, and can swarm your download across all four networks.

      --
      "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
  11. Winelib. by numbski · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know what everyone's thinking right now.

    d00dz! Build it for [Linux|*BSD|OSX]!

    Either lots of recoding needs to be done, or if you're REALLY lucky, it'll build using Winelib.

    I'd be interested to know if the latter works. ;)

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

  12. Remote access by xsupergr0verx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A new, very comprehensive "remote web access" feature allows full remote control of Shareaza's searches, downloads, uploads and networks from any web browser.
    That's what I am most excited for. Checking your downloads and searches while out of town for a few days or at school. Very useful indeed

    --

    Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
    1. Re:Remote access by NiteHaqr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Try the following combination

      Linux
      SSH
      screen
      btdownloadcurses

      Been doing it for ages........

    2. Re:Remote access by garcia · · Score: 4, Funny

      Checking your downloads and searches while out of town for a few days or at school. Very useful indeed.

      Mostly for claiming that it was someone else that used your computer to do all that illegal downloading, not you. Right?

  13. Re:Better? by smd4985 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Shareaza is definitely no better than Gnutella (LimeWire performs much better). Shareaza has a nice interface but downloads are iffy and the client is very buggy. Seems like the move to GPL is a desperate attempt to catch up to LimeWire (which has been open source for a while and making amazing strides).

    --
    smd4985
  14. API by KoriaDesevis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If the API used by P2P apps is open and documentation for it is readily available on the net (e.g. Gnutella protocol), does releasing this app as open source really prove much? The original Gnutella's source is still available and I would think this would be simpler to follow (was more of a simplistic implementation)...

    Hey, I won't argue with making it OpenSource, I think it's a positive thing either way. In this case, though, I don't see too much benefit if the goal is to create spinoffs. If the goal is to have community recommendations, that might be a little more beneficial...

  15. Excellent! by Otto · · Score: 4, Informative

    Now, hopefully, someone can fix the whacked out BitTorrent implementation.

    It works okay, but the way it uses the temporary files is just wonky. It downloads everything into a temporary file and then splits or copies the file when it's completed downloading. While this is fine in theory, in practice the problem is that the act of the splitting/copying is heavy on drive use, slows the whole system down, and generally is a PITA to deal with. Furthermore this makes it difficult to use other BT clients with the files, if you happen to want to use a different client in the middle of a download. You have to manually split the temp file apart using a separate tool or manually create a temporary file for Shareaza to use for the torrent.

    Why it can't use the standard create the files as you go method I don't know. I think it's because he just worked the protocol into raza using the existing codebase like the temporary files.

    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  16. MLDonkey by ptaff · · Score: 4, Informative

    Before you consider trying Shareaza, have a peek at MLDonkey. A nice multi-interface multi-protocol project done in Python that supports all that Shareaza supports and more.

    1. Re:MLDonkey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not true, mldonkey is done in Ocaml.

  17. Re:Better? by hawkbug · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, but does it encrypt the data stream so people can't spy on what your download? If not, it's still just another file sharing app people won't use.

  18. Re:Better? by xsupergr0verx · · Score: 2, Funny

    Very true, it's use of Gnutella is pretty lame. However, this is easily my favorite ed2k program and I adore the bittorrent throttling settings (I had a linksys card that overheated using BT once!)

    --

    Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
  19. Kudoes and all; but,... by Like2Byte · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's .NET source.

    From the vcproj file:

    VisualStudioProject
    ProjectType="Visual C++"
    Version="7.10"
    Name="Shareaza" ...

    Ugh.

    1. Re:Kudoes and all; but,... by CaptainTux · · Score: 4, Informative

      While I haven't looked at the source yet, the snippet of the project file you posted IS NOT an indication that it is written in .NET. This appears to be a plain old Visual C++ file. Visual C++ != C# or any other .NET language.

      --
      Anthony Papillion
      Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
      "Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
    2. Re:Kudoes and all; but,... by alexo · · Score: 3, Informative

      > It's .NET source.

      No, it is not.

      > VisualStudioProject
      > ProjectType="Visual C++"
      > Version="7.10"


      That's the version of the environment.

  20. Re:Better? by xsupergr0verx · · Score: 5, Informative

    You don't get busted for downloads, you get busted for uploads. The program has an option to turn off all uploads (even of partial files.)

    Very useful for me, as in the last year I recieved two "friendly letters" from the BSA and MPAA respectively.

    --

    Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
  21. A couple notes by Tweaker_Phreaker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Shareaza is heavily dependent on MFC libraries and so it will probably be a while before any ports pop up. For those wondering why anybody would want a port of Shareaza, well it has support for four file sharing protocols (Gnutella, Gnutella 2, ED2K, and Bit Torrent) and can simultaneously download parts of a file from each network as long as it has the needed hashes. So instead of running several clients to download all the files you want from different p2p networks, you can just use one program to do it all.

    1. Re:A couple notes by Tweaker_Phreaker · · Score: 2, Informative

      Shareaza's developer(s) are committed to only supporting protocols that are open and support full file hashing so that there aren't a bunch of corrupted files spreading around the network. For that reason the main branch will never support most (if not all) of the protocols you mentioned.

  22. protocol by hey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Would be better if they just published the protocol!

  23. Re:You miss the point by Otto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the DMCA notice arrives...

    There's no *basis* upon which they can send a DMCA takedown notice.

    A DMCA takedown notice states, under penalty of perjury that the material in question is copyright infringing material and is owned by whomever is sending the notice.

    Sending a DMCA notice to someone is a legal document stating that the material you're bitching about is, in fact, owned by you or somebody you represent. If you don't in fact own that material, you just committed perjury and can be held liable for that.

    If somebody were so stupid as to send SF a DMCA notice for Shareaza, which is *known* to have been entirely written by this one guy who's putting it out there (he wrote it from scratch, he should know), then they'd be liable for a pretty easy countersuit.

    It won't be taken down anytime soon, methinks.

    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  24. Re:Better? by sabNetwork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I beg to differ. Have you ever tried Shareaza? I am not affiliated with either project, and I must say that Shareaza blows other Gnutella clients out of the water.

    * The user interface is unmatched, at least on the Windows platform.
    * Performance-- LimeWire and Kazaa both suck the crap out of your CPU.
    * Support for multiple protocols
    * Plugin functionality

    The biggest benefit of Shareaza going open source is the inevitable addition of a FastTrack plugin.

  25. From the FAQ: Not compatible with Kazaa. by aardwolf204 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Shareaza wants to be the Gaim or Trillian of P2P, however they only support open-spec networks like edonkey, gnutella, and bit-torrent. From the FAQ on their Wiki
    Will you add support for Kazaa?
    Short answer: No.
    Long Answer: Kazaa's network, known as FastTrack, is a closed network and requires hefty licensing fees to have access to. Shareaza is a non-profit/free project and thus can not pay for access to another network. If Shareaza reverse-engineered the network protocol, then it could be shut down because that is illegal.

    Basically, Shareaza could either pay thousands upon thousands of dollars a month to connect to FastTrack, or use it illegally and live with the high possibility of being sued by the operators of FastTrack for even more money.

    However if it can keep all of my bit torrent downloads in 1 easy to manage window with universal bandwidth management it may be worth it for just that.
    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
    1. Re:From the FAQ: Not compatible with Kazaa. by Otto · · Score: 2, Informative

      However if it can keep all of my bit torrent downloads in 1 easy to manage window with universal bandwidth management it may be worth it for just that.

      I like Shareaza. It's swarming across multiple networks is a cool feature. But for BT downloads, it's not quite there yet, although it has potential.

      For managing multiple BT downloads, the current app I use is Azureus. Written in Java, but nonetheless a good application with a lot of features. And far, far faster at BT than Shareaza.

      --
      - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  26. Re:Better? by Tweaker_Phreaker · · Score: 4, Informative

    LimeWire is a great Gnutella program but that's all it is (Shareaza supports four protocols) and it still lacks lots of features that Shareaza has like ghost ratings (tells people about bad files that you've deleted) and the ability to ignore ID3 tags while hashing (even if people change their ID3 tags, it will still have the same hash).

    Also, Shareaza's Gnutella performence isn't too great because:
    1) Its Gnutella code hasn't been updated much because Mike (Shareaza's creator) seems to want everyone to use 'Gnutella 2' instead and he's been busy adding lots of features into Shareaza.
    2) Shareaza is only a Gnutella Leaf node and depends on other clients to be the Ultrapeers but most Gnutella clients started to give preference to their own kind (ie. LimeWire mostly only connects to other LimeWire clients) even though it goes against their own ideology.

  27. Try TermSvc or VNC by aardwolf204 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you are running Windows XP you can open TCP port 3389, or forward it to your machine from your router, and connect to it remotely using remote desktop (Terminal Services). The client can be found here . If you are using another OS or would rather use something more free try VNC. Personally I like Tight-VNC as it offers the ability to add jpeg compression.

    I often use either of these to check my Bit Torrent downloads from work. Once you start using it you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. Sometimes I find myself VNC'ing into a computer in the other room on my network at home just because sometimes I'm *that* lazy.

    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
  28. And here comes the RIAA's illegal hacking... by TyrranzzX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    and the MPAA's, and the porn industries, and virus writers. This will be a good test of the viability of open source solutions for real-world security applications; real corporations have real economic incentive to destroy the networks, and now that the source is out and the lock is off, they're sure going to try.

    So says the king of tin-foil wearing freaks of nature!

  29. ed2k link by fasura · · Score: 2, Funny

    ed2k://|file|Shareaza_2.0.0.0.exe|2617678|7e7dca19 e42f10d609e0aeddc7735d69|/

    --
    -- Be careful what you say. Someone might remind you about it another day.
  30. Re:Better? by orasio · · Score: 4, Informative

    freenet?

  31. Different hash methods by Otto · · Score: 2, Informative

    Shareaza takes account of this to some degree. It calculates all the various hashes and shares these with other clients on the Gnutella2 network. So if you search for some file and find a client on Gnutella2 with that file, you'll get all the various hashes for that file when you tell it to download it. Then it can search for and download that file across all the networks.

    It also works with BitTorrent, to some degree. A lot of recent torrent making utilities have added support for Shareaza's method of inserting these hashes into the torrent itself (it's backwards compatible too), and using raza to download these torrents will let it search for and download from the other networks as well.

    It can also do trackerless torrents, although that doesn't get a lot of use as yet. Download a torrent using raza and it'll send a search out on the G2 network for anybody else who happens to be downloading the same torrent, and they'll become BT sources for each other, no tracker needed.

    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  32. Re:Better? by Impotent_Emperor · · Score: 2, Informative
    I think that's a changeable option. You can tell it to show the rates in many different forms. I've get it set to show in kilobytes per second. Speed really depends on how many available hosts there are and how much bandwith they are giving (and how fast your own connection is).

    I don't Shareaza for download BitTorrent files. I just got used to the regular BitTorrent program. Also, I had to reinstall BitTorrent because Shareaza hijacked the settings and took over for it.

  33. mlDonkey has multinet swarming support by Sweetshark · · Score: 2

    Shareaza is, for now, the only application that support multiple network swarming downloads.
    Wrong!
    A new MLdonkey unstable core has also been released last night, bumping it up to version 2-5-devel-6, featuring full multinet swarming support and lots of other improvements.
    source

  34. Re:No anonymity - therefore useless by Kenja · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "Any P2P without anonymity is useless."

    Translation: Any P2P without anonymity makes it possible to get called on my actions. I don't wana break the law if there's a chance I could get caught.

    So much for the civil disobedience argument.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  35. Re:No anonymity - therefore useless by julesh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are uses of P2P networks that the RIAA can't complain about, you know.

    I, for one, share free & shareware software and public domain fonts.

    Plus the networks are used by pron sites to advertise their content.

  36. Re:It's NOT ANONYMOUS Filesharing ! Try these ! by 42forty-two42 · · Score: 3, Funny
    Stop the Mpaa ! We have a right to checkout software before we buy.
    A) You don't, and B) the MPAA make movies, not software. You're thinking of the BSA.
  37. Re:No anonymity - therefore useless by tukkayoot · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Any P2P without anonymity is useless.

    Hardly. First of all, it's virtually impossible to create a functioning P2P network that offers true anonymity. My understanding is that even Freenet is not truly anonymous (it just offers a few layers of anonymity that could be peeled away if you're determined enough?), and it's also my understanding that Freenet's usability is not up to most peoples' standards (aka, "useless".)

    Second, it's not as if everyone who shares music infringing on the RIAA's copyrights gets a lawsuit brought on them. As a percentage, very few do. So if you're willing to accept the risk of the small chance that the RIAA does pick you to sue, then it's not useless.

    Third, there's a lot of stuff you can share on these networks besides material copyrighted by members of the RIAA/MPAA, including a tons of infringing and non-infringing stuff.

    My P2P client of choice at present is eMule, which doesn't offer a shred of anonymity. I'm not particularly worried about the RIAA and MPAA because I don't download the MPAA's movies and download/share very little of the RIAA's music (mostly older, rarer songs, b-sides and the like... stuff I highly doubt turns up in their searches to catch people for sharing). I share/download a little software via P2P. The bulk of what I download are TV shows (Firefly and Farscape specifically, lately). So, despite eMule's total lack of anonymity, I have to say I find it very useful.

  38. I only have one question by WildBeast · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does it have pr0n? :)

  39. Re:Better? by 0111+1110 · · Score: 2, Informative

    You will be severely penalized in Bittorrent swarms and moderately penalized in Emule/Edonkey in terms of a much slower download speed and/or longer queue waits (in ed2k)for not uploading.

    Also, official versions of Shareaza do not allow zero uploads on the ED2K network because it's not allowed, and shareaza clients would be banned by other clients and probably by the servers as well.

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  40. Re:Complete w/ the spyware? by julesh · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've been using shareaza for two years and have never had spyware installed by it. You must be confusing it with something else.

  41. Re:Developer Quitting by julesh · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't think you're right. The statement from him when he released it doesn't suggest this. In fact, he said:

    Of course I still have some strong views on which direction Shareaza should be going, and what kind of features I want to add - but now that can be part of a bigger picture, rather than the only picture. [emphasis mine]

  42. Re:You miss the point by Alsee · · Score: 2

    A DMCA takedown notice states, under penalty of perjury that the material in question is copyright infringing material and is owned by whomever is sending the notice.

    NO IT DOES NOT.

    For example the Dumbasses at Universal Studios (copyright holders of the movie U-571) did a general search for mpg files with 571 in the name and tossed off a pile of bogus DMCA takedowns such as this:
    Title: U-571
    Infringement Source: FTP
    Infringement Timestamp: 2/22/2003 12:15:00 AM
    Infringer Username: None
    Infringing Filename: 20571a.mpg
    Infringing Filesize: 349336000
    Infringers IP Address: 209.237.233.141


    And what is 20571a.mpg? It is a PUBLIC DOMAIN 1956 safe driving video. You know, those ultra cheezey highschool driver ed videos.

    The takedown notice was totally bogus, but Universal Studios was NOT guilty of perjury. The only part of the notice that is under penalty of perjury is claim to be (or represent) a copyright holder of *something*. Universal Studios truthfully claimed to be the copyright holder of the movie U-571.

    There is no 'under penalty of perjury' for the claim that the target of the notice has any connection to said copyright at all. And even if the target of the notice is in fact related to said copyright, there is no 'under penalty of perjury' for the allegation that the target is infringing at all.

    The 'penalty of perjury' clause is a meaningless joke. I can state that I am the copyright holder of this post (true, under penalty of perjury) and issue a takedown notice on your post, or even on your wedding photos.

    The DMCA was literally written by lawyers employed by the publisher's lobby. This deceptive 'penalty of perjury' clause is but one of *many* absurdly lopsided portions of the DMCA.

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.