P2P sharing...free but risky! (Limewire)

Member Name: stealme

Product:	Limewire
Date:	24/08/09 (330 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free and fast downloads

Disadvantages: Viruses and possible fines

Limewire is one of many free peer to peer (p2p), file sharing networks. It launched in 2000, became one of the biggest p2p networks on the world and is now available on 31 languages. It works when people seed files over the internet and then you can download it from them. You can download music, videos, programs and images, nearly everything at absolutely no cost at all.

I first used Limewire so I could download songs to put on my iPod. It is great service because you can sync Limewire to your iTunes library. When you download a song it will automatically be added to you iTunes playlist. I find that they usually download fairly quickly and it doesn't usually take more than a couple of minutes per song. Since then I have also downloaded movies and programs, these however take a lot longer. Movies can take, with a good download speed, a few hours and the programs can take days.

Of course there are also many downsides to downloading all these files for free. You can end up paying a hefty fine as this isn't entirely legal. The Limewire program itself isn't illegal at all, it's the files that you download that are illegal due to copyright and such. Personally, I have been using this for months and have had no trouble. A way to ensure you don't get caught is to not share files yourself. If hundreds of people are downloading files from you it's likely you won't stay anonymous for long, so if you decide to use Limewire, disable file sharing. This can be done in the options menu. In the end there's still that small chance that you could get caught, so really it's up to you whether you want to risk it.

To download files on Limewire you simply type whatever you're looking for in the search bar. A list of search results will then come up. Then click the result that is most relevant to what you're looking for and it will start to download. Sometimes these files won't work or there something completely different to what it says. This however is rare and as you learn to use Limewire, you will begin to recognise which files are genuine and which are not. When searching for files, videos especially, some adult content can appear in the results. If this bothers you, in the options menu you can enable an adult content filter.

One final problem with Limewire is viruses. Many people complain about the viruses they get when downloading files. Strangely I haven't had any viruses yet and I have been using this software for months. Maybe I have just been lucky but if you have a good virus protection program it won't be any trouble to get rid of them.

There is a premium version of Limewire that claims it will give you faster downloads and safer search results. I however wouldn't pay for a p2p program and the basic free version works just fine. The downloads are plenty fast enough. Your download speed will however vary according to your internet service and computer.

Other p2p programs include Bittorrent, Bearshare, utorrent, Kazaa and Frostwire, the list is endless. I Haven't used all of these programs so I can't fairly say that Limewire is the best however Limewire is the world's fastest p2p sharing network so using Limewire is tempting. I have also had no problems with it at all so I don't see any reason to try other networks.

Overall Limewire offers fast downloads for nearly any file at no cost. However there are problems with viruses, and the copyright can land you with a big fine, however this is the same for any p2p network. It is a simple piece of software with a great layout and it won't take you very long to learn how to use it.

Thanks for reading :)

Summary: Great if you dont want to spend money on itunes

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