File Sharing Part one.

Do you remember when Napster was shut down by the RIAA years ago?

the same thing has happened to Limewire when it was effectively  shut down by a lawsuit on September 30 of this year. 

Limewire was viewed by most as the spiritual successor of Napster, and with Limewire gone and Napster operating on a  pay-per-song model some may have questions, such as where can I share files now? what happened to limewire?  is file sharing  ethical?  (according to logic.)
I will attempt to answer  these questions in this three part series on file sharing, starting  after the Jump

How can we share files now?

Most people are only familiar with using Limewire to share files, but there are many alternatives. 

I am only going to discuss two of them here, Vuze and Frostwire, because they are the easiest to use.

 FrostWire

I'm going to start out with the two easiest programs to use; Frostwire and Vuze.

Frostwire is based off the Limewire code. it works just like Limewire. it looks just like Limewire. it even sounds like Limewire. there are only difference between Limewire and Frostwire: Frostwire content is virus scanned before being downloaded. and Frostwire has a smaller library of content then Limewire. 

the second dereference is exactly why I dislike this software, as far as content goes, it has next to nothing.

the software is very straight forward to use so I will not  discuss it any longer.

VUZE

Vuze is almost nothing like Limewire. but it does have much more content, more features and it's easy to use. with Vuze you share albums rather then songs, also, you can stream video you've downloaded to ps3, xbox 360 or another PC in the house. 

to use vuze, first begin by typing in what it is you want to download in the search bar.

find the one you want to download and click the blue arrow pointing down.

it will show up under "downloading" on the side bar.

vuze places the downloaded files in  My Documents\Vuze Downloads

you can drag and drop the downloaded files onto the itunes logo (also on the sidebar) to add them to itunes automatically. 

Vuze has a nice library of content and a lot of features, but the downloads go slow, and it has some serious bugs (at times.)

even if your internet speed is 18 mbps down (as mine is) a 700 megabyte video could take up to three hours to download. (speedtest.net estimates that it would take six minutes to download a 800 mb file with 18 mbps down.)

still, it is definantly my favorite file sharing software. 

I should also  mention that Vuze encourages legal file sharing, and recommends that you download content that is under the Creative Commons License. 

Part Two.

I will be posting the second part in this series of file sharing posts, "What happened to Limewire?" on Sunday the 4th (tomorrow) 

I will attempt to write the third and final part by next Saturday.

I admit that I have been neglecting my blog as of late, and I will begin posting more frequently, I've just been feeling like this lately: