| Product: |
Bearshare |
| Date: |
20/06/01 (369 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Fast, free, big number of files available
Disadvantages: Sometimes doesn't work
Napster could be/ is in real trouble in the moment. And it isn't hard to guess that that isn't going to please too many people (apart from certain musical artists) as people liked having music for free. So now people are looking for alternatives to good old Napster.
Luckily (or unluckily in many respects) I was already ahead of the game. This was because Napster had been great for a fortnight or so and then it decided it just wasn't going to work for me for some unknown reason.
So I couldn't do anything: searches, downloads, uploads or chat - just wouldn't work and I really was not a happy bunny over it. So I just said to myself - no problem, you'll just have to use another site.
The trouble was having downloaded several other programs including Audio Galaxy, Limewire and several other Gnutella systems just said no way hosey to me and wouldn't do a thing. Audio Galaxy couldn't even find the server to register as a user so that was a complete waste of time. Another site, Audiofind would work but was just too small and wouldn't find any matches for many of my searches.
So now I really was getting quite desperate as I was missing all that free music as a student who doesn't really want to spend much on CD's. In fact. I was so desperate that I resorted to typing 'music downloading sites' in a google search.
Initially this produced trash for the first say fifty links with news reports on music downloading sites and people mentioning them generally. There were a couple of sites there that I had already tried as well but it wasn't until about the sixth page that I found something good.
This something was Bearshare and the unusual name stuck out on the page and grabbed my attention at once. Thinking no harm could be done by trying I clicked on the link and quickly up came a bright and colourful site.
The homepage has all the information on the progra
m that you could ever want and I soon wanted to download it. This process is also very easy with a clear link to download and once you start it, it is so quick and to completely download the program took me a mere ten minutes on a 33.6 connection which certainly isn't the fastest around.
Then, once it's downloaded you just click to install it and you can start using it immediately. You don't have to fill out any online forms to register as you are simply added automatically to the list of users and you can remain completely anonymous.
Searching for what you want is so simple as you type in what you want and off you go. Sometimes the search doesn't seem to work and does nothing and others it just takes a long time which is annoying but on the whole it finds what you want. It can often find a hundred or more files if your search is for quite a popular track.
Then you just have to double click on the file you would like to download and hey presto off it will go trying to connect to the person on the other end. The connection percentage isn't wonderful and varies greatly as people are often busy or occasionally will refuse you the download although that is a rare occurrence. However, Bearshare will tell you quickly if it can connect or not and if not it will retry until you tell it to stop doing so.
You can do (in theory at least) as many downloads as you want at one time but each one will get slower the more you do. You can also change how many uploads (getting music from you) people can do from you at once and at first I was very cautious about people getting things off of me as I didn't want them to hold me up but now I have opened back up as no one has asked for a download from me in my time (a couple of weeks) as a user and so I don't mind people doing some uploads from me. Hopefully everyone else on the system does likewise as then everyone is happy getting the tracks they want and sharing the mu
sic they have
The connection speed is good and don't be alarmed if it bounces all over the place as that is standard. For example, sometimes my connection will be downloading nothing for a few seconds and then suddenly explodes up to 70 Kbps (kilobytes per second) and then will calm down to changing between about 7.8, 16 and 23 Kbps every couple of seconds.
In terms of the speed of downloading in general, I have to say that it is good and quite quick. The fastest download I have managed to get a 3.5 Mb music file which was 4 minutes long down in just 17 minutes Other downloads have taken between 24 minute for a 5Mb and 1 hour 40 minutes for a 14Mb download.
If you want to work it out before you get something, generally for music files, 1Mb of download = 1 minute of music and 1Mb of download = about 5-8 minutes of downloading time. However, this is for a one at a time download whereas if you are doing more than one at a time, it will take longer.
The whole principle of Bearshare is good as well as really the courts just couldn't shut it down. For a start it holds none of the music itself and simply connects the uploader and downloader and so probably couldn't be made illegal as they are not giving music away and are doing nothing wrong.
Also, as there isn't a proper central server like there would have been in the old Napster (I say old because a friend informed me that now Napster works just like Bearshare - just connecting the person with the music to the one who wants it. Can anyone tell me if this is true?) As on each download your own computer becomes the equivalent of the server just for that download. But then again I don't think that Bearshare could be banned anyway and so it really shouldn't come to that..
The fact that Bearshare is globally operated (meaning that people from all over the world use it and not just mainly people from the USA) is also great as if you want to
get a specific cultures music then you can find it. I very often find myself connecting to Dutch and Belgian ISP's to get the downloading and why it should be those countries I do not know. However, most users are American I think.
Also, there are a lot of users (Bearshare is just about a part of Gnutella and so uses other Gnutella files too) and different tastes in music and so even if you are looking for some pretty unheard of/ underground stuff, you may well still get a couple of files. What's more, whilst Napster is restricted to music files, Bearshare does other types of such as videos but these files can get rather big, say 100Mb and downloading that would take a while.
If you have a very good internet connection that will stay up for hours this site would be absolutely brilliant as you could search for several tracks, start downloading them and just leave it for hours upon end whilst you can go out or do something and when you come back, they'll be sitting there waiting for you.
Unfortunately, in many people's world of unreliable BT or other ISP connections, this is not the case and I normally check on the downloads every few minutes if possible as my connection has the tendency to stop anytime after two hours and so downloading big files such as some of the videos would be tricky for me.
A good thing is that if your connection goes down and you can find the file you were downloading again, it will start trying to download it from where it left off so you can do it in several sections. Trouble is the person you are downloading from may go away or refuse you the download if you have to keep coming back for it.
Another good point is that you are in control when you need to be. By this I mean that you have all the information on what is happening. If someone is uploading something from you, you can stop it at any time (or if you not sure about a download the same is true) if you don't want th
em to and in the statistics section you can find out exactly how much is coming in and going out from you and where to.
There aren't many downsides apart from the fact that it isn't always able to get to the other person as they may be busy and that file downloads can be a pain to restart if your internet connection lets you down.
Overall, Bearshare is a brilliant alternative to Napster which as far as I can see will continue to work for a long time to come. In many ways in fact it is far better than Napster (shock horror, never thought I would say that) and I think that I would choose it over Napster any day.
The more people that join, the more files will be available and the better the service will get and as there are no big servers, it can't really get overloaded. And best of all, it's free!
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