So what is  today's best P2P file sharing program?  One that doesn't have any spyware or bs?  Thanks, J

Best for what? For bigger files, the torrent programs have the most content. eMule, eDonkey, Azureus. But these are the ones that effectively broadcast your IP address--the ones that US users have gotten charges for using. In terms of the total users, very little lawsuits have been brought--but you may still wish to avoid the possibility.
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Direct Connect is another big one, but then it has "share minimums" that can prevent you from getting a lot of stuff you'd want. Some of the best "rooms" (chat rooms where people with the most material hang out) have share minimums of 100-150-200 or more gigabytes, and the people in them tend to discriminate against you (kick you out) if you don't have a very-high connection speed. ....A ripped DVD movie is around four gigabytes. I have about 200 CD's ripped at 192Kb/sec, and that totals only about 9 gigs. ....For that matter, a lot of people on all P2P networks will kick you off their files if you don't have anything to share.
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SoulSeek is good for music.
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Ironically, the only ones that usually have spyware built-in are the "legal" ones like Kazaa and Napster.
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Getting music or videos off P2P is still safe, but you should have a virus scanner running of course. As far as software goes, do remember though that any piece of software you get off P2P can be infected--and scanning the installer may not show the virus or trojan. They can be inserted in ways that make them difficult to detect in the installer.
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BitTornado, but observe the etiquette:

Always leave a torrent open for a while after you download it, so that others can upload from you. That's why bittorrents are so fast.

Quoted: BitTornadoBitComet, but observe the etiquette: Always leave a torrent open for a while after you download it, so that others can upload from you. That's why bittorrents are so fast.

fixed

Quoted: Quoted: BitTornadoBitCometuTorrent, but observe the etiquette: Always leave a torrent open for a while after you download it, so that others can upload from you. That's why bittorrents are so fast. fixed

Quoted: Quoted: BitTornadoBitCometuTorrent, but observe the etiquette: Always leave a torrent open for a while after you download it, so that others can upload from you. That's why bittorrents are so fast.

Azureus - because sometimes the tracker is down...

for a regular P2P, I like Ares

Quoted: I'm surprised that no one at AR15.com has set up a WASTE network.  Private, encrypted P2P.  Our own AR15.com DarkNet... -Troy

Thanks Troy - I needed that.

Quoted: I'm surprised that no one at AR15.com has set up a WASTE network.  Private, encrypted P2P.  Our own AR15.com DarkNet... -Troy

color me interested

IBTFSISC...

(In Before The "File Sharing Is Stealing" Crowd)


I use K-lite myself...It doesnt have quite the file load that Kazaa had a couple years ago.

Does anyone else use Sharaza? I am rebuilding my PC and I am about to reinstall it. Is there a better one?


ByteTheBullet  (-:

Bueller?


ByteTheBullet  (-:

Quoted: Does anyone else use Sharaza? I am rebuilding my PC and I am about to reinstall it. Is there a better one? ByteTheBullet  (-:

Is sharaza even around anymore?
I use and like ARES
ARES

Quoted: Does anyone else use Sharaza? I am rebuilding my PC and I am about to reinstall it. Is there a better one? ByteTheBullet  (-:

I tried it. In about two weeks, constantly searching, I've got maybe 3 files off of it. My collection, which was exactly 160 songs (from off of Imesh, before it switched to a paid service... at least, I think that's what it is now) as of noon today, is now 451. Yes, in the ~12 hours I've been seriously using torrents, I have more than doubled what I have. And I could have even more, if I spent more time thinking of albums I want.

Quoted: Quoted: Does anyone else use Sharaza? I am rebuilding my PC and I am about to reinstall it. Is there a better one? ByteTheBullet  (-: Is sharaza even around anymore? I use and like ARES ARES

shareaza is still around, and still kicks ass

Quoted: I'm surprised that no one at AR15.com has set up a WASTE network.  Private, encrypted P2P.  Our own AR15.com DarkNet... -Troy

Talk about a blast from the past, I remember when it was released and suddenly stripped off the servers at Winamp.   I thought it had excellent potential at the time but it never caught on.

Quoted: So what is  today's best P2P file sharing program?  One that doesn't have any spyware or bs?  Thanks, J

BitTorrent and the Pro version of Limewire, which you can download using the regular free limewire

FreeNet is an interesting concept, but there's not a lot of "regular" files shared on it yet (that is, movies, software and music).

For secure communications it beats the others in principle because not only are the transmissions encrypted, but the file requests are routed in such a way that nobody else can detirmine who is hosting any file, or who is requesting it. Your ISP can detect that you're running FreeNet, but can't really tell what you are doing with it. Nobody else can accurately detirmine remotely what files you are hosting, and you cannot detirmine who is downloading files from you. And it supports "torrent"-style distribution--on big downloads, your download speeds can regularly go far above any single person's upload speed.

Most of the content on it is "websites", and most of these are "normal" enough opinion/blog type sites that they could be placed on the regular interenet anyway, -but not all. As something of a testament to the level of anonymity, for a long time there were at least two hardcore child-porn sites that show up in both major indexes. If police can't figure out how to stop that, then it's a good bet that police can't stop anyone else from distributing anything else either. If you want to post material truly anonymously, FreeNet is really the only place I know that you can do it.

The kiddy porn is only two sites and the indexes summarize the sites pretty well, the rest of it is pretty normal stuff. And there are a few files shared. There's one long-standing site where you can download all the Star Wars movies for free, for example.

www.freenetproject.org/
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I like Limewire. Thanks for the tip on Limewire Pro.