bearshare

[TURBO]

anyone here use it?

is it full of spyware or viruses?

anyone have any other sites they can recomend?

[Katuluu]

Torrent. Bearshare/Limewire and their ilk are pretty much worthless.

[TURBO]

is torrent free?

[Brian the Automator]

Yes, altho it's a bit of a different animal... You don't search for torrents and download them within the same application (usually). You download .torrent files which are pointers to parts of files on other peoples' machines. Google for a quick intro on them, and you'll see what I mean. It's much better than straight 1:1 P2P filesharing.

[endaround]

just keep in mind torrents are best for newly released things

[brewcrew00]

To ask another question within this thread, is there a way to download music without feeling like the FBI is going to come bust through my wall like the Kool-aid Man?

[TURBO]

it is my understanding that they are nailing the people who share the music, not those who download from others.

 

the people they have sued are "sharing" music with others to download, there has yet to be a case where they prosectuted someone for "downloading only."

 

(this was true a year or so ago when I was using winmx anyway, not sure if it is still true though)

[giffted1]

After using Limewire and Winmx for a while I switched to torrents and never looked back. Here's a few links:

 

utorrent - my bittorrent client of choice (there might be better ones out there)

 

isoHunt - a place to search for torrents

[burniebrewer]

I haven't downloaded in a while, but why are torrents so much better? I could get most songs in about a minute on Limewire/Frostwire.

[TURBO]

frostwire?

 

and yes, I can download a song in less than 30 seconds with my roadrunner connection.

[Brian the Automator]

As far as legality goes... The things that they care about the most are people who download and share new movies and music that hasn't been released yet. I've also heard of people who've gotten letters for downloading things like HBO shows. Generally, the more money there is to be made off something and the more damaging it is to share it, the more likely you're going to be in trouble for it.

 

I don't condone or endorse any such piracy, of course.

[bjkrautk]

To ask another question within this thread, is there a way to download music without feeling like the FBI is going to come bust through my wall like the Kool-aid Man?

There is still the option to pay for the music you want to listen to...

 

[Brian the Automator]

To ask another question within this thread, is there a way to download music without feeling like the FBI is going to come bust through my wall like the Kool-aid Man?

There is still the option to pay for the music you want to listen to...

 

A better option is to use an online music service like Rhapsody. Definitely legal, and a pretty low fee per month for pretty much any album you're going to want.

 

I do like torrents for live DJ sets and bootlegs, though... things you can't purchase.

 

[brewcrew00]

Currently I do download legally, nor am I supporting illegal file sharing. I'm just getting a little fed up with paying .99 per song on itunes. Is rhapsody ipod compatible? For some reason I feel like it isn't which is why I wasn't using it in the first place.

[Brian the Automator]

Currently I do download legally, nor am I supporting illegal file sharing. I'm just getting a little fed up with paying .99 per song on itunes. Is rhapsody ipod compatible? For some reason I feel like it isn't which is why I wasn't using it in the first place.

I don't believe Rhapsody is ipod compatible.

 

[zurch1818]

I download with napster. It costs 10 bucks a month for unlimited downloads. There is one that is 15 bucks a month that allows you to put the song on a compatible mp3 player (not an Ipod). But anyways, I bought the one for 10 bucks a month. The only problem with these is that they are protected. However, I also downloaded TuneBite with torrents; this program turns a protected song into an unpretected song. This unprotected version also is compatible with any mp3 player.

 

This might not be completely legit, but it is a lot harder to get caught and can also download whole cds under 2 minutes.

[brettac1]

I'd stay far, far away from things like Bearshare and Limewire.

 

I really love a using a combination of eMule and torrents. However, torrents kind of suck now that OiNK and (to a lesser extent) Demonoid have been taken down. In the days of OiNK, I was able to get ANYTHING with ease there and there were always plenty of seeders. And I was able to get leaks ridiculously far in advance for almost any album. Now, I just have to wait patiently for a worthy successor to OiNK.

 

I also tend to download only full albums, though, and I know a lot of people don't do that. eMule works great for that, because you can just search for archive files (mostly .zip's and .rar's) and I can find most of the obscure stuff I'm usually after there.

 

For people who don't want to go through the hassle of downloading a new program, I would recommend trying Google's BlogSearch and just searching for the artist and the name of an album/song. You can find pretty much anything you're looking for by doing that.

[I Heart Brewers]

If you feel guilty about not paying for music there is the Napster alternative in which you pay about $10/month. You can download as much as you like.

 

Then to actually keep the music you can use 3rd party software such as Tunebite to 'record' the music you have downloaded from Napster. This essentially removes the copyright protection as it is a dub of the WAV file you have downloaded. Fairly straightforward and you are actually paying for music prior to downloading it. I would imagine near impossible to incriminate as well.

 

Downside to Napster is selection, it doesn't have everything, but just about. Also, the dubbing on Tunebite can be time consuming, however if you set it up to go in the background while you sleep you wake up to brand new music you can take with you.