Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
lots of files, fast downloads, masses of features |
| Disadvantages: |
queues, cluttered interface, scary for newbies |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
Napster is dead, file sharing isn't.
In fact, since the demise of Napster(well its dead as far as I am concerned) file sharing has just increased in volume rather than it being stamped out as the music industry had hoped. Now, you have access not only to MP3s, but software programs, images, documents and even complete movies if you have the time and patience to download 400MB+ files on a 56k modem! Of course if you have a high speed internet connection then you're well away. A number of programs which allow this kind of sharing have sprung up or increased in popularity since Napster effectively bit the dust. The likes of Mopheus, Kazaa, eDonkey, Gnotella, Bearshare, iMesh, Filetopia, Limewire...and so on, the list is seemingly endless and ever-growing, have all arisen hoping to take the crown of the best new fiesharing program out there. Of course, if you ask me, then Morpheus already has the crown and if the new update improves upon the filters etc. then it should keep it too, but there are a few other contenders to it as well.
One of the things you should look out for when choosing a file-sharing program is the security features. You have to remember that you are effectively opeing up your hard disk to investigation by other members on the same network as you so you don't want some hacker being able to take a walk around your system! Most seem to ave this covered, there was a report about Morpheus being wide open to attack but ths has been officially denied, the source was iffy and no one has substantiated it - seems to be bunkum. The security issues you actually have to worry about come bundled with the software itself! Forget hackers and think "spyware", "Hijackware", "Thiefware", "Foistware" and the like instead. Huh? Yes I know, meaningless bunch of technobabble to most people but what this basically means is that age old saying is as true with the internet as it is anywhere else:
"There is no such thing as a free lunch"
Sure, the software itself is free, the files you download are free too but no software company is going to go to all the trouble and expense of creating, marketing and maintaining a software program like Kazaa or Morpheus etc. without there being something in it all for them now are they? What a lot of these companies do is attach a bundle of additional components to their own software provided by other companies for a fee. Foistware is annoying, programs like Gator which request installation after you download the program you wanted - a simple cancel makes them go away. Spyware, hijackware etc. is more than annoying, it can actually be dangerous and it installs silently and sits in the background invisibly whilst you are connected online, tracking your surfing habits and sending back this information back to the company which owns it. The worst examples of this kind of thing track keystrokes, providing password information and credit card details amongst other things which are sent back to a server somewhere for collection - not good obviously.
If you have installed any free software then the chances are your privacy is being invaded by one of these companies, hopefully one of the less malicious ones. Its not just filesharing, but a lot of free software downloads contain it. Fortunately most of it is easy to remove, simply go to:
www.lavasoftusa.com
and download their free(yes and spyware free) piece of software called AdAware, do a simple scan(its idiot proof) and it'll highlight the spyware and offer to remove it. Be warned though that some of these companies do not want you removing their spyware and if you use a product like Gator, then you'll notice it cease to function after the spyware has been removed. Best to kill the spyware and change to a spyware free productif you ask me, but its your choice. Oh, and if you think reputable company, everyone uses them so they must be ok, then think again. Audiogalaxy is one of the biggest MP3 sharing programs around, yet came bundled with a piece of spyware which they decided not to check out(their excuse was the companies do not make the code available to them - hah!). Turns out it recorded credit card details and sent them to an anonymous email address and also that the company address give to audiogalaxy was bogus...over a month's worth of downloads came with this decidedly dodgy piece of software attached and installed without consent to people's systems.
All of which rambling leads me onto this product...
There are two(presently) file sharing programs which come to you completely devoid of spyware and its bretheren - Morpheus and WinMX. Fortunately too, they are two of the better filesharing programs as well. Morpheus is dead easy to use, has bazillions of users and (despite what everyone else seems to think) you can always find what you are looking for. WinMX is the same...but its not a program for newbies.
The first thing which strikes you about WinMX when you install it and run the software is that its hardly the most user friendly piece of software. In fact, my first impression was basically "oh sh*t" when faced with its initially incredibly daunting interface. In fact, I STILL have no clue what the initial "servers" screen is meant to achieve but thats ok, because obvious I didn't need to. WinMX connects to the OpenNap network, but the servers window doesn't actually tell you much other than you are connection to something. There are a bunch of options here which seem to do nothing, but all you need to know is "not connected.." bad, "connecting..." good "connected too..." ready to go. Gets me by anyway. If you are a little more techie minded thean me then you'll have a field day with this software because its packed full of options and tweaks.
Which is its biggest problem.
WinMX suffers from having far too many options and not enough documentation to enable an average user to be able to use it. If you are a computer dunce then forget it, you'll be lost here. If you are an average user then you'll 'get by' like I do, but you'll never understand all the features and always feel somehwat alienated by the program. For an advanced user though it just perfect. You can twiddle and tweak away until your heart's content with all the multitude of options here. The interface is though rather horrible. It is as if the designers had a bazillion ideas, and just threw them together. Its incredibly cluttered and unorganised, but its not that navigation is difficult. There are tabs neatly arranged and labelled along the top of the screen which themselves draw up more menus, and inside those a billion options. But it is as if they didn't know where to put things so they just threw loads of miscellaneous option into various unintuitive categories. This is the single most off-putting thing about this program...
...but then, as an average user of it, you probably own't want to go dabbling around with all the scary stuff anyway!
Get past the initial shocking interface of this program(its actually excellent, offering a fully customizable experience which no other offers) and you are onto the stuff which sorts the wheat from the chaff :
Searching
Availabillity of Files
Download speeds
These are the main things which I look for in a file-sharing program. No point having it if you can never find th files you want, or they download sooooo lsowly that you might get them by next Christmas or if the search engine is so iffy that its a pain in he butt to use! Fortunately, WinMX excels in all these three
areas.
~Searching~
Continuining with its theme of being fully customisable(or horrendously cluttered depending on your viewpoint) the search facility here offers a huge number of search options to get you exactly what you want. You can search by a title/artist, select which server you want to search on(or all), select you file type - video, picture, audio other than MP3, MP3 and a vast selection of bitrates - or just all MP3s, or just all files, and specify the minimum speed of user to download from so you can get a lightning fast T3 download instead of a snailpace 56k modem. Results are shown in a large results window detailing a bunch of info. about the file such as its name, size, username, speed(cable, 1 etc.) and whether its available. You can ping these results to give even more information about which to donwload from as well. Results are returned quickly and a simple click on the filename will start the download.
~Availability of Files~
There are masses of files available here, nothing has yet to reach the standard of Napster for MP3s and neither does this, but there are still many, many files to be found on here - I've never had a problem finding what I wanted. Even found the Ying Tong Song last night because I wanted to hear it following dear old Spike Milligan's death. :o(
A gripe about this program though would not be actually finding the files but getting them to download. sure, its just a simple click of the mouse but then theres...the QUEUE. Many of the more popular files will find you dumped in a queue to receive them. Sometimes a couple of minutes, sometime infinitely long queues. Movies are the worst, queues of 80+ people and if you have a slow connection like mine you tend to find yourself moving down that queue rather than up! I also found myself disconnected a few times but I'm sure that has more to do with people not wanting to share with a 56k modem than WinMX being problematic. WinMX lets you share from one person at a time as opposed to something like Morpheus which lets you download the same file from several sources which avoids the problem of idiots disconnecting you in case you bog down their T3 connection(HA!) or people going offline. It does however support a resume feature on files, so no matter how many times the link is broken you can carry on downloading the same file from a different source. This is essential for file sharing, but still some programs like Bearshare do not feature it!
~Download Speeds~
In my experience these are excellent, by far the best I have found in filesharing programs anywhere. I have AOL(still) and download speeds are never exactly wonderful. Usually I get around 3-4kbs, sometimes less, very rarely more on general downloads. Morpheus says it downloads from several sources at once to speed up downloads, but I can't say I've ever noticed a difference, download speeds there are usually 3.5 - 4kbs. WinMX is giving me at the time of writing this op. a speed which is varying from around 4.3 - 4.8kbs which is excellent for my system, and others claim too that the download speeds are good, and can be improved on faster connections(with some more of that scary looking technical tweaking). At one stage or another(however briefly) I have used all the bigger file-sharing programs out there and this is certainly the fastest I have come across.
~Other Bits and Pieces~
To talk about all the features of this program would be impossible. Like I said, its as if someone had an enormous brainstorm and tossed every single idea they could think of incorporating into one program and the result is WinMX. Other features to mention in passing would be the obligatory chat function which lets you converse in real time with other online members - to set up file swaps, etc. or just plain out chat. Sharing your own files is as simple as browing a directory tree and adding a tick next to the folder(s) you wish to share from, being VERY careful not to share a tree branch, with all its folders of course! You can also specify what type of files to share, so if you just want to share MP3s then thats all that will be displayed no matter which folder you select. There is also a "hotlist" to add friends to...and a whole bunch more besides.
~Omissions~
Its amazing when you consider everything that this program does have to then talk about what it doesn't. As a Morpheus user the firstthing you'll notice missing is a 'player' of some kind to play back all those files you have downloaded. This doesn't come bundled with the software so you'll need to have windows media player or something similar on your system(and open) to be able to see or hear what you have downloaded. Another 'omission' would be the previously mentioned multiple downloading from more than one source which allegedly speeds up downloading not that I've noticed it doing so, but does mean that you stay connected to a download source for longer I have noticed.
~Overall~
Overall, its a damn fine piece of software but very cluttered and disorganised and it'll scare the pants off any newbie user because of that fact. If you can stick with it then its worth the effort, although I would still recommend Morpheus because it is so much more easier to use. WinMX is vastly superior in terms of functionality but the two gripes are rather large ones. Finding a file to connect to is tough, finding one which doesn't stick you in an ever-lengthening queue is tougher. I like to click "download" and have the file come to me, not have to click download 10-20 times before I find one which isn't queued! Other than the queueing and the clutter its perfect! Definitely recommended anyway.
very helpful
