LIMEWIRE
The
Low Down: This is the easiest program to setup. The
installer has a quick interview that does all your settings
automatically. It's a good idea to search for high quality
mp3s only (128 kbps and higher). Read our LimeWire
tutorial for more info.
Content: Music, software & movies. I
grabbed the Harry Potter movie overnight.
Speed: As fast as the person you are downloading
from. Step aside dial-ups.
Platform: Mac & PC
Final Word: The only bad thing is the interface
us a little slow.
URL: http://www.limewire.com
|
KAZAA
The Low Down: Kazaa is the new Napster. It's very
popular and bombards you with advertising. They took the no-income
Napster business model and added some advertising. Which means
you will be dealing with a lot of pop-up ads.
Content: was mp3s only
Speed: Slow. Grandpa will probably finish
reading the newspaper before you download a full CD.
Platform: PC & Mac
Final Word: It's slow and has lots of dumb
people who misspell file names on purpose.
Damn
those Generation Y kids.
URL:
http://www.kazaa.com/
|
AUDIOGALAXY
The Low Down: Getting setup on this site
is like buying crack. You have to know people, who know where
you are suppose to click. The secret is to click on the small
satellite icon on the top right of their web page. Like I
said, crack.
Content: mp3s only, no video
Speed: Pretty fast. Takes about 30 minutes
per album (12-15 songs).
Platform: PC only (those damn platform racists)
Final Word: Good site if you have a PC. Download
those songs fast before the anti-Napster lawyers need a new
target |
NAPSTER
The
Low Down: The old Napster is dead. Every new technology
or service needs a guinea pig to test the waters. Apple
was the guinea pig when they introduced the Newton, the
world's first PDA, in the early 1990s. It failed, but 10
years later even 12-year-olds have Palm Pilots. Likewise,
Napster was the guinea pig for free MP3 downloading. But
every time those corporate lawyers shut one of these services
down, 10 more take their place. Roxio, the popular CD burning
software company purchased Napster, and is a distant second
to Apple's Itunes Music Store.
Content: Windows only WMA files
Speed: average
Platform: PC only
Final Word: crappy web interface can't match
iTunes.
URL:
http://www.napster.com/ |
IMESH
The Low Down: Average music selection with lots of
movies. Also this is the first client we saw that downloaded
EVERY file requested.
Content: audio, images, documents, and video
galore
Speed: Pretty fast baby.
Platform: PC only (those damn platform racists)
Final Word: A word to the wise: it installs
a crap load of spyware. Don't know what spyware is? Find out.
iMesh is a good alternative to Limewire, but a big downside
is having to uninstall the other spyware programs that come
with it.
URL:
http://www.imesh.com/
URL: http://www.im-l.com/iml/ |
HOTLINE
The
Low Down: Hotline has every digital file you heart
can desire. Movies and CDs before they come out in the theaters
or stores, DVD's like Girls Gone Wild, all types of games
from Palm Pilot to PSX2 and even classified government documents.
I found some old CIA and UFO document. Who knows if it's real
of not. It sounds almost too good to be true, right? There
is a catch. There's a complicated set-up and a secretive Hotline
subculture. Some people make a living running Hotline servers
out of their houses. We did an in
depth set-up article so check it out if you are interested.
Content: Everything you could ever want.
Speed: Super fast but it depends what sever
you are connected to.
Platform: PC & Mac
Final Word: Tough set-up with a secretive
subculture and big rewards.
URL:
http://www.bigredh.com/ |
The
Internet is full of mp3s, movies and other free digital files,
but where should you look? Here's 6 options*
for people who like their music free. The difficulty of the different
services range from the very easy like Limewire and
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