If you think Hotline is like Napster or the Web, you are wrong. Hotline is like connecting to your friend's computer, except over the Internet. There is no universal search engine for finding a specific file or mp3. You have to connect to a Hotline server and take a look at their files. Servers sometimes have themes and will only have mp3s or maybe movies available. You will probably find the same exact file on many servers. People all over the world run Hotline servers and everyone shares. Why Hotline? Because it's much more reliable than programs like Napster and Limewire. When it comes to large files like games or movies like Spiderman, Hotline is the way to go.

Make sure you have the Hotline Client application. You can download it from versiontracker.com or bigredh.com. It's a free download.

01. Before you can download something, first you have to find a server. And actually even finding a server is a little tricky. Websites like Tracker Frog provide a listing of servers grouped into Trackers. As you can see from the image below Darkside is the most popular Tracker with 2020 servers listed. Copy a Tracker address you want to check out and go to the next step. I'm picking Darkside for this example. Click on the image to the left for a larger view.

02. Open your Hotline application. From the Hotline menu, select "Show Servers." If it wasn't already open, a Server window will pop up. The little middle button with 3 dots is the Add Tracker function. Press it.

03. Type in a name for your Tracker. It can be anything, but you might as well call it Darkside. Then add the address we found on the Tracker Frog website. Darkside is very popular, but there are many others. Another cool Tracker to start with is Revolution. Here's the info: Name: Revolution, Address: revolution.frenzy.ca

04. Once you add in your Tracker info, you can flip down the little blue arrow and see all the servers associated with that particular Tracker. In the image to the left, I flipped down Darkside. At the time of this search, there were 2060 servers linked with Darkside. Click on the image to the left for a larger view.

05. To limit your results, you can type in a search term. I typed in Spiderman in this example and flipped down my three Trackers; Back Up, Darkside and Revolution. Only 12 servers matched from the 3 Trackers I used. So I have 12 places I can download the Spiderman movie. There are three columns of information in the picture to the left. The first column is the Name. The second is Status. The status column tells you how many people are connected to that server. The third column is the Description. Your search term, in this example Spiderman, will be matched against the server descriptions.

06. Remember, Hotline is all about sharing. You will probably have to upload some files before an Admin will let you download any. Also, make sure you read the News. Select "Show News"from the Hotline menu as soon as you connect to a server for the first time. Also, I was only searching for the original Spiderman 1 movie trailer with the World Trade Center in it. (The movie studio pulled it after 9/11). If you are searching for the 2002 or 2004 movie releases of Spiderman you will probably find them. But remember, it may not be legal to download them.

Good luck!