Before moving on, let me say once again that I am really sorry for not getting back to the Torrents and P2P series last week, but you’ll see that it was worth to wait for this episode. Just take a look above, for example… eMule’s official page, right?

Nope, not really, NO!!! That site in the screenshot is a well done scam, since the domain used is eMule.com, and the current version of the eMule software available there is the same as the official one, 0.49c. To take a look at the original stuff, you should see the previous article in the series.

As a little interlude, let me say this – I think one of the safest approaches to this is to take a look at the Wikipedia.org page for the file sharing software you want to start using, and you’ll surely get the link to the official page, as well as info regarding bundled adware/spyware (for example, take a look at the Wikipedia Kazaa page, and you’ll get the idea).

Moving on, we have Shareaza.com and PantheraProject.com, both being exactly the same, with the second one (shamefully) listed as first result by Google when looking for Shareaza… The whole story of the domain takeover can be found on Wikipedia, but here I will stop at saying that Shareaza V6 is NOT the original thing. Since we didn’t talk about it last time, let me tell you that the original Shareaza page is now hosted by SourceForge.

Regarding DC++, I have no idea about scammy pieces of software developed using it as foundation, but I know about completely outdated spinoffs that are still widely used, oDC++ and LDC++ being only two of them. Anyway, there are plenty of fake files and viruses to avoid on the Direct Connect network… so that should be enough!

To end this properly, let me tell you about the things about what a “good” file sharing site/software will NEVER do – “Lifetime membership for downloading free content” or paid downloads, for pretty low rates (if iTunes sells tracks for $0.9, how in the world one can imagine that paying $0.5 for an entire album released yesterday by a big artist can be anything else but a big scam???), that’s the first thing to keep in mind!

At last, here’s a good list of file sharing scam sites I run into earlier. If you find anything useful to add, please don’t be shy and drop a comment below, all right? Thanks in advance!

Oh, one more thing – the screenshot above is not there by mistake – torrents aren’t always about downloads… and considering the heat most of us go through these days, seeing that is much better than just some software interface screenshot. These being said, let’s begin, shall we?

1. DC++ – most popular client for the Direct Connect network; you need to share some files with the others, the amount depending on the hub you’re connected to; high risk of downloading viruses/Trojans; download speed for connections outside local LANs can be extremely slow, and a lot of users are using bandwidth limiters, but if you’re connected via some large high speed metropolitan network, this could be a great choice.

2. AphexDC++ – this my new favorite, at least when it comes to DC++ hubs downloads; you can easily switch from DC++ to it; the security threats remain, and the same is true with what I wrote above about download speeds; comes with some extra features when compared to the original DC++, of course. There are plenty of similar DC++ spinoffs, such as StrongDC++ or RevConnect, and if some friend told you that oDC is the best… just drop it, that one is a DEAD project!

3. eMule – bringing the eDonkey network and the Kad network together, eMule is a very good file sharing software for those who don’t want to share anything, just download, although sharing some material is something nice to be done; viruses/fake files are pretty frequent; download speed is rather low, and depends a lot on the number of sources available and various limitations your ISP may have, but there are about 3-4 million users connected at any time, so… There are a lot of eMule spinoffs available, and a lot of those have spyware included, so beware! (we’ll talk about such programs in the next episode)

4. BitTorrent clients – I will mention only a triad here, leaving details about them and the important remaining ones for a future article, because there’s a really incredible number of them available for all platforms. uTorrent, BitSpirit, and BitComet are my picks, and you probably know what’s in it for you already – download speeds highly depending on the limitations your ISP has (or not) in place and the number of sources for a file you’re downloading, pretty low risk of downloading fake releases/viruses, and a very large user base.

Sure, the above is only a small part of the file sharing software iceberg, but we have plenty of time ahead, so we shouldn’t hurry. After all, you’re going to use them all for 100% legal downloads, riiight?

1. LegalTorrents is the first site that jumps up when you’re looking for “legal torrents” in Google, but the content could be a big disappointment to most people used to… ehem, less legal torrent trackers. For example, there are only 8 game torrents, 18 podcasts, 3 graphic novels, but plenty of netlabel music downloads, apart from other categories, like pictures or audio books.

2. PublicDomainTorrents is a site with a design that would have been nice over a decade ago (and then some years more), and if you can handle the ads that take most of the screen space… you may find some interesting freely available movies.

3. Legit Torrents makes me realize why I usually get things right after missing at least twice – while a lot of torrents are various Linux distros, there are also a lot of freeware games and programs available for download, and seeing that this site has “12235 registered users with 15,704.47 TB of traffic” makes me hope there’s a future for legal torrents sites, after all.

4. The etree.org Community Bittorrent Tracker is the last on today’s list, but it’s a real treasure for those crazy about music. Why? Here, you can find a really impressive amount of music from trade friendly artists (The Grateful Dead and Primus included!), and a serious part of it all is encoded using losless formats, like FLAC. Awesome, absolutely awesome!

No need to go through the history of file sharing once again, so I will tell you a few things about that bootlegs issue I mentioned earlier. More than just bootlegs, it’s about the legal or not issue all over the world.

We’re not all lawyers, that’s a truth nobody can deny, but as long as I missed a show, somebody recorded it and made it available online for free, downloading it shouldn’t be illegal. On the other hand, if the live material was recorded by the band/artist to be released on an official recording, chances for you to step into illegal land by downloading the bootleg are growing exponentially.

If you really care about the artists you like, you should buy the original recordings and go to concerts when possible, and if you’re really a fan, you should also do your best to collect bootlegs available online. Speaking for myself, I still collect Queen bootlegs recorded in late 1970s, and since I can’t find any official recording from some shows… there’s no other choice, really.

When it comes to games and movies, things are changing rapidly. While there are plenty of free games around, most movies aren’t available for free. Of course, you can go to some torrent tracker and find them, download and watch, but that’s illegal, as long as that movie is not one freely distributable over the Web, like Home 2009.

In many cases, there’s a very thin line between legal and not legal in the land of file sharing, but you can always ask those behind the product you want to download and they should tell you if that Angelina Jolie movie is really freely downloadable or not.

One last thing to say, guys – we didn’t speak about the tools used to download legal or illegal content, but there are also some traps you need to avoid when choosing one… and since we should go through some of the free file sharing sites available out there first (I am talking about torrent trackers, of course), I guess there’s plenty of stuff to think about until our next encounter in the land of file sharing, don’t you think?

Whoops… I just told you about the next two topics in this series! Anyway, you can still drop your suggestions below, so if you have something more interesting in mind, don’t be shy!

… when the 8-inch floppy disk was developed by IBM. Sharing files was pretty easy – you copy the original data files, then borrow the disk. Obviously, there were only a few computers around back then, but this happened again almost two decades later, when optical and flash media became nothing out of ordinary.

A few years later, in 1978, CBBS becomes the first Bulletin board system, but BBS access is limited to phone lines until early 1990s. Anyway, almost two decades ago, BBS was probably the most widely used file sharing method… apart from passing original discs/copies to your friends, of course!

In 1979, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis came up with Usenet. Three decades ago, Usenet continues to serve files through alt.binaries.* newsgroups! I guess I don’t have to say that most of those are illegal copies… and this is a topic we’ll get to some other time, anyway, since there’s quite a lot to say about illegal/legal file sharing.

Six years later, the FTP protocol becomes standardized, and in 1988, IRC is born (it may be strange, but I know quite a few people who were crazy about exchanging media content via IRC about a decade ago).

The real thing starts with the formal proposal of the World Wide Web, in 1990, followed by the introduction of the MP3 standard, at the end of 1991.

In the following years, it all starts to take off, as Winamp hits the road in 1997, followed by MP3.com, the first MP3 player (the MPMan F10), and in late 1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is passed by the US Senate, as the weapon of piracy destruction used in most legal actions against various file sharing services.

In 1998 and 1999, two big falling stars of the file sharing constellation were born – Audiogalaxy and Napster. The first one fell in 2002, and the second, in 2001.

In early 2000, Gnutella becomes the first decentralized file sharing network, and the eDonkey2000 client gets released in September.

One year later, Napster is shut down, and a new star is born – BitTorrent who arrived later that year, together with some other goodies.

In 2002, eMule arrives, quickly becoming the most popular client for the eDonkey2000 network. A lot of other interesting things happen in 2002, but 2003 is the year when isoHunt and The Pirate Bay are being released, making the world a much better place for piracy… ehem, file sharing. No need to link to them at this time, don’t you think?

In 2004, the fight against illegal file sharing takes off seriously, with 750 lawsuits filed by the RIAA, and ShareReactor being shut down by the Swiss Police. Ouch!

Next year, some lawsuits end pretty bad for those in the file sharing camp, but the worst part of it all is that eDonkey2000 and Overnet are both being discontinued after receiving a cease and desist letter from the RIAA.

In 2006, Razorback2 is raided and put out of commission by the police. This was one of the most important eDonkey servers, and despite the fact this action didn’t stop eMule users from downloading stuff, it was surely a serious blow. Even more, the Swedish Police raided The Pirate Bay about three months later.

In 2007 and 2008, a cat and mouse chase follows, with various file sharing resources being taken out and then brought back to life.

In early 2009, The Pirate Bay trial gets a lot of media coverage, and now we’re waiting for the appeal, since the initial verdict was – obviously – a “guilty” one. Other than that…

… the clock is ticking and the history is written as we speak. Next stop will be in the “legal or not” area, one of these days. That’s all for now, folks… so stay tuned!

Since this isn’t something I’ll start now and finish by the end of the week, it would be a pleasure to answer all your questions, and maybe even write about some interesting topics you will think about… just don’t forget to share your thoughts with the rest of us, because I can’t guess what you’re thinking about, all right?

Those who say Linux is something the world doesn’t really need should reconsider it, because the communication protocol known as BitTorrent is one of the most notorious file sharing protocol, and was born to help distribute various Linux versions. The fact that most of the BitTorrent traffic is warez, that’s a completely different story, but there’s one well hidden truth that most people ignore, and that is 100% legal torrents. If I think well, this will be the subject of the next episode in the series, and I hope you’ll find it a good way to start.

Since tech stuff is boring, just let me point out that some estimates claim that, back in 2004, 35% of all Internet traffic was peer-to-peer BitTorrent traffic, and now there’s a lot of pressure from the recording companies and movie labels to stop this “disease,” some more recent statistics raising that 35% to over 80%, and also claiming that over 95% of all data moved around by BitTorrent is copyrighted stuff, like movies, music, and commercial software. If you have any idea about such statistics, please drop a comment below, I would really like to see some new information about peer-to-peer traffic!

Anyway, that’s most of it for today – I don’t want to kill the subject about legal torrents, and I think that the very short version of all we discussed here is “There’s a way to download movies, games, and music for free, without breaking the law, and all you need is to be careful what and how you’re using to do it.” Details about legal/not legal, genuine peer-to-peer software/fakes, most notorious P2P programs and maybe even some guides for using them… in the near future. Stay close, so you won’t miss a thing!