Better than Napster, Morpeus and Kazaa (WinMX)

Member Name: Mr_roll

Product:	WinMX
Date:	18/07/02 (1589 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Many Users, Few Viri, No ‘spy ware’

Disadvantages: none

I don’t know how many people use this program but any search for the word “pink” will bring up 1000+ search results. Downloading via WinMX is easy and non-illegal. Although privacy is a great factor, you would never get caught for just downloading an mp3. There are no personal details to give, just simply select a unique user name, don’t use your telephone number.

-Downloading From different users-
This is a very useful feature of the program: let me explain. If you want to download a song from the latest Pink album and you know the name. The best thing to do is to search for the name of that song and then download the required file. But if there are 2 or more users you can download from 5 or 50 different users. This has its advantages: The file can be downloaded much, much faster compared to only downloading from 1 user. I use a 56k modem, so I download from 5 different users max!

-User Interface-
The layout of the program has evolved greatly in the latest version (3.22 at the time of typing) There are windows that can be selected from the top of the user interface that will open up the different parts of the program. Those screens are:

Networks – This tells you details about the network connection that you have. It tells you your user name and offers a chance to change your user name.

Shared Files – It is called a file-sharing program so you should share files to other users. You can choose a specific folder and the specific media such as .mp3 files or .mov files or you can share any other file that you want to, its very simple and explained on screen. Your computer is not shared, unless you choose to.

Chat
A facility where by you and other WinMX users can chat while downloading the latest movie.

Search
The most vital part of the program, this is a simple process; there are a lot of buttons on this page next to the search boxes. But all those
buttons are explained clearly on the program and only needs common sense to work many of them out. You may not understand some or all of them, but with practice and regular use you will become familiar with the position and the different facilities offered by this excellent program.

Hotlist
A little like the contact list on a messenger program. This list stores the screen name of users you may want to download from in the future

Transfers
This lists all the downloads and uploads that are in progress to and from your computer. You have great control over other users downloading from your computer. For 1 you can select specific files to share, you can also set the speed at which the other users download from you. If you go to Settings -> Bandwidth Throttles at the top f that dialogue box you can change the download speed for you and for users downloading from you. If you are downloading from 1 user, it would make sense if you wanted to find more, so the download could go faster. To do this you need to right click on the download information in Transfers and then click the “Retry/Find Sources” option. This will enable the program to search the users logged into the WinMX network to for the file that you are downloading.

Bandwidth
This is a feature that logs your speed at which your downloading files and puts the information into a time-bandwidth graph for easy reference. This feature also puts the outgoing bandwidth (speed) into a graph.

Conclusion
Privacy: 100%
Easy to use program
Less computer crashing than other file sharing programs like Morpehus or kazaa.
No ‘spy ware’ as I know

Great Program. Go get it! Share a file or 3 and then download all the latest music

Summary: