http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2861201 LOS ANGELES -- Kazaa's long-standing position as the most popular online file-sharing software appears to be over. Last month, the daily average of file-swappers on the FastTrack peer-to-peer network, which includes Kazaa and related programs, was surpassed for the first time by users on the eDonkey/Overnet network, according to online tracking firm BayTSP Inc. EDonkey/Overnet averaged 2.54 million users a day while FastTrack averaged 2.48 million, the firm said. Kazaa users make up the largest proportion of FastTrack, said BayTSP spokesman Jim Graham. Graham said there has been a steady decline in Kazaa users and a commensurate rise in eDonkey users since BayTSP began monitoring file-sharing networks 18 months ago for piracy on behalf of film and music companies. Kazaa quickly became the most popular file-sharing software following the demise of the original Napster network, which shut down in 2001 after losing court battles with the music industry. Over the past year, Kazaa distributor Sharman Networks has been one of the main targets of lawsuits and monitoring by the entertainment industry. The recording industry also has sued thousands of file-sharers, many of them Kazaa users. The usage figures are based on numbers displayed by the file-sharing programs. The data are inflated by an unknown number of bogus users, actually entertainment company plants, who constantly load fake or incomplete copies of popular songs and movies to thwart file-sharers. BayTSP's monitoring does not encompass all the file-sharing networks, however. Graham cites the BitTorrent network as an example of a file-sharing community that has grown increasingly popular. The company tracks file-sharing on BitTorrent, but cannot tell how many people use it, Graham said.
I think it is the spyware/adware that bringing Kazaa down. Sure there's Kazaa lite, but who wants to search around, sorting through tons of fakes in order to get your hands on it. I switched over to Shareaza a while back, but have actually been using torrents almost exclusively for the past couple of weeks.
There appears to be a free version. Probably has nags and/or advertising built in. http://www.download.com/eDonkey/3000-2196_4-10311701.html?tag=pop.feed&tag=feed&part=cnet
limewire uses the same sources that kazaa does. i had limewire for awhile, but it slowed down my computer. im using Ares right now, and i have had no complaints whatsoever thus far.
BT is very much depending on how hot the download is, for hard to find stuff, you still got go with eDonky
I used to use Kazaa all the time, but now it's virtually impossible to find anything on there since it's littered with fake files. For music, I usually just try WinMX and have little trouble finding what I'm looking for. And for TV shows and movies, BitTorrent never fails.
I count on you techies to keep me informed and don't know anything about Ares or EDonkey but I've been using Soulseek and it's been working like bandit (pun intended). So what about these is different or better?
I have been using Bit Torrent more and more and i use Newsgroups alot as well. I was wondering if there is a good search engine for Torrent files so i can do searches for what i need etc. I gave up on Kazzaa a long time ago as it got worse and worse with it's spyware and resources hogging.
see the RIAA are kidding themselves if they think fining and sueing people is going to do anything. There's always going to be a way around. If i really wanted someone's album, i'd get it. The fans of the artists buy them just because they are fans. Alot of the artists get exposure from people downloading their songs. Even if we couldn't download any music, we wouldn't buy it in the first place anyway. If you say, well it's the poor ppl who download. Yeah, good job, sue the ones that can't pay the fine. Great idea. ok rant ended. Limewire and Bearshare have good amounts of stuff. suprnova.org has lots of things for bit torrent too. p.s: does anyone remember who the ****ers were who started this sueing ****? I forgot which band it was.
http://www.suprnova.org for torrents. I pretty much only download TV shows, but they've got a large listing of everything.
Metallica...mainly the Drummer was the one pushing it hard. He had this big deal after people were downloading a song that had not been released yet and at that time it was Napster he was fighting.
