Limewire.......Discuss

[Impress to inflate]

I have been told about a program called Limewire. Its a p2p program. Are there any pruners out who have used it and can comment on it. Discuss ITI

[Le Pen]

Use it and LOVE it.

No complaints for what it is. Does exactly what it says on the box. Do use Bitzi with it tho to check files.

LP

[Willows]

If you use Limewire, check THIS LINK. (http://img.sheezyart.com/art/swf/82/821125.swf)

[planecrazy.eu]

Funny clip, i recognised the music, then realsied it was off a TV show my Daughter watches, Lazy Town.

Anyway, limewire, great for Video and Music, in my mind by far the best.
Its not too good for software, cant find much on there i want, might just be me.

EDonkey was the best in my mind, but they got shut down only last weekend, or decided to stop, not sure. So now i am back on limewire pro.

Must agree with above, limewire is great and fast, would recommend it...

[FormerFlake]

Limewire is quite effective, but make sure you have good antivirus as some of the stuff is suspect. Watch out for wrongly labelled items too, had a shocking file involving a young lady and a horse!!!

Used with common sense you will have no issues.:D

[Tarq57]

Not so, extreme P.
Limewire is one of the p2p applications that has no malware, nor "hidden" clauses in the EULA.
(Unlike Kazaa, which spawned a dedicated Kazaa-malware-removal industry)
Had no problems using Limewire. A caution though, make sure you are not sharing your computer with the world. It's eye-opening to see how many are. I've fixed this problem on a friend's computer, his son had installed it but not configured the "shared folders" correctly. Easy to do, under "tools>options" in the program.
The above caveats do apply, there are some decidedly nasty videos available. Haven't had any problems at all with music downloads, apart from the odd corrupt file.
Not a great place to download programs from. You're better off getting them from a reputable site like http://www.download.com/2001-20_4-0.html I've read a lot of the programs downloaded via P2P contain nasties.
Have a look here http://blogs.download.com/Daily-Download/post.php?p=1175 for news items pertaining to P2P generally.
This http://www.download.com/PeerGuardian/3000-2144_4-10440558.html?tag=lst-0-1 is a worthwhile program to have if running any P2P. Here's a download/review page for Limewire http://www.download.com/LimeWire/3000-2166_4-10552048.html?tag=lst-0-2
Download.com checks all their hosted downloads for spyware etc.

[Jet II]

Limewire is OK for individual songs - if you want complete albums your far better off using bittorrent.

[ormus55]

i use limewire with no problems at all.
read up on it first though. make sure u install the SW from the limewire website only. make sure your security is up to date.
and never download any file smaller than 1mb. they are the dangerous ones. the baddies.

song/music files are usually approx 2 or 3 mb upwards.

[BombayDuck]

edonkey was a gem, too bad it's gone.

*cough*eMule*cough

[IO540]

Edonkey is gone?? I use Emule and it is all still working fine.

P2P is a great facility; would not be at home without it ;)

There is a lot of fake files which are viruses or trojans; you need a virus checker, plus use a certain amount of common sense and paranoia. Also some ISPs will disconnect your account without a warning if they receive one of those automated copyright infringement complain emails.

[419]

*Cough*Thanks BD*Cough

[Bahn-Jeaux]

In this day and age with the RIAA and other such organizations on the case, I use the newsgroups entirely.
Nothing to share, nothing required to share and most ISPs provide free access to them.
No tracking as to useage so the best and safest option so far.
I would recommend scanning all downloads first before opening though as there are still some oddbods out there who will disguise a trojan or two as a legit file.
Anyone want any info, I have a word doc thats give you all the pointers you need using a proggie called PowerGrab (freeware).
Powergrab has been updated since but the principal is the same and configuration isnt much different.

Go here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/shane.j/NewsGroup%20Tutorial.doc) for it if you want a peep.
Its hosted on my own webspace so its not leeched or pirated and it is safe.

[IO540]

Usenet is doubtless the best for mainstream warez or common music/video downloads, but nothing beats P2P for the sheer amount of material available.

For a start, I am not going to download any music made in the last 20 years; it's all junk :)

[Bahn-Jeaux]

A.B.Mp3.50's 60's 70's oldies, country, bluegrass, the list is endless.
far more than you think.

[ChocksAwayUK]

I use p2p or torrents as a last resort if I can't find what I'm looking for on usenet. I can recommend easynews (www.easynews.com) as a good, user friendly news server. It has a very useful web based newsgroup searcher and a web-based news-browser (i.e downloader thingumy).

[joe2812]

Limewire for individual songs and Torrents (usually via isohunt.com) for albums, films, software etc.

Only ever got one successful piece of software from Limewire and that was Solid Edge (CAD program) for Uni work.

LW is still the best P2P software in my mind.

[Bahn-Jeaux]

Nah, I pay (yes the P word) around 5 quid a month for up to 90Gb download from 100proof news.
The retention is around 10 times my isp's so just about everything I want and a lot I didnt want but get anyway is available to me whenever i want it.
latest movies, proggies and albums and a lot more besides.
I wont touch P2P again.

[Devlin Carnet]

Bahn-jeaux,
Maybe you could help me,
I've gone down the newsgroups route but am stumped a bit.
When you have downloaded an item, it comes down as many files and pars,
I have used quickpar to check the files and got a no repair message.
Now what do I do with all the .zip, .dmg, etc files to get them into a format to burn to cd as an installable program.
PM if you like,
Cheers.

[Bahn-Jeaux]

Devlin, if they are just zip or rar files then all you need to do is extract them using a program such as WinZip or Winrar.
Depending on what format they were in before they were segmented into smaller files, you wil either get the full installation files or whatever the file was (film perhaps) or it may appear as an ISO, or Bin and Cue file depending on which program was used to make the file.
These are image files and need to be burnt to disc using something like Nero which has the option to burn many different forms of image file.
The other type of file you may encounter is when they are renamed to something like .dit. This is just an extension that has been made up to disguise the true nature of the file. In this case just rename all the files with the extension .Rar and then extract them as before using WinZip or Winrar.
It is worth trying to see if Winrar will open these files without renaming as sometimes they can be extracted without any fuss.

[Devlin Carnet]

Ahhh...I get it now..
Thanks mate.

[Farrell]

Have had no problems at all with Limewire.
There are some bogus files and nasty spyware stuff there, but use your head and you won't go wrong.

For example, the guy I was talking with on the train who downloaded a malware file thinking that it was an episode of "Family Guy"..... the fact that the file size was only 380kb should have tipped him off!!

[Cheerio]

I don't know anything of this P2P stuff, other than I use Bit Torrent to get official Linux software versions. This thread tweaked my interest, so in the name of research I tried to get a random film (French Connection). OK, I know its breaking copyright law, but I wanted to test out the concept. I tried Bit Torrent and downloaded Limewire, searched on Mininova etc. for seeds, and pretty much gave up after a couple of days. I could have waited till lunchtime tomorrow, and gone down to the library, picked up a free DVD loan, and still beaten P2P.
The best download speed I could find was less than 25K on a 2M connection- about a 1.5 day download! Am I missing something, or is this typical? I was also less than impressed with the seedy smut and mal-ware 'push the fart button' type environment it's necessary to enter. Not for me!

[ChocksAwayUK]

Yup, that's the problem with P2P and why I'd only use it as a last resort after Newsgroups and Torrents.

With P2P as the name suggest (peer to peer) your download speed is limited by the others upload speed so is never likely to be very fast. With torrents you are taking advantage of the upload speed of several(sometimes hundreds) of other users at the same time. With Newsgroups you are using their dedicated servers which have high upload speeds by default.

[Tarq57]

I found that if Limewire is downloaded from the official, or at least a reputable site (say, Download.com) there is no seedy "push the fart button" type web environment.Nor pop-ups, nor rude pics.Nada.
Seediness may exist - and often seems to - when doing a video search; rarely with an audio search.
As ChocksAway points out, download speed is limited by other users upload speed, but also by the configuration of the program (good forum info available for this) and the number of online users hosting the particular file.
Worst download speed IO've had <1kb. (1 host, modem, across the universe.) Best, 117kb (multiple users, t3).
I would have to be mighty desperate or masochistically curious about my AV's capability to download any .exe or .rar etc file using this. Heard about quite a few nasties. Spyware, viruses, etc.

Edit Just searched for French Connection, out of curiosity. Within 1min the film was located. (117Mb,avi.) It was no. 15 of the available titles; the other 14 were all porn.

[Confabulous]

Limewire is great for music and videa, E-Mule is great for everything else.

About this newsgroup thing - are there any free ones out there that actually work?