Limewire Alternative

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by Vista FTW, Jun 15, 2008.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Vista FTW

    Vista FTW Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2008
    Posts:
    6
    I am running Vista and I like to listen to music, but I've heard that limewire is ridden with viruses and I'm sure it is, I was wondering is there a safe alternative to Limewire.




    [MOVE][GLOW="RED"]MAC COPIED VISTA!![/GLOW][/MOVE]
     
  2. pugmug

    pugmug Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2006
    Posts:
    413
    Yep,spend your money to pay for the music you download.
     
  3. Teknokrat

    Teknokrat Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2007
    Posts:
    95
    Location:
    First Life? (Sweden)
    Personally I think eMule is a good alternative. Make sure you have up to date protection and use common sense.
    It's amazing that ppl actually download files like <the song you are looking for>.exe.
    Another option is to get a bittorrent-client. Look for torrentsites that require a registration (less crap there than on public sites like TPB etc).

    OT Rant in response to the previous OT post:
    regards
    /T
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2008
  4. Dark Shadow

    Dark Shadow Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2007
    Posts:
    4,553
    Location:
    USA
    My suggestion would be purchase your music and still be sure to have protection In place.However I had used limewire for some older music the harder to find music.The way I did it is In a virtual environment or frozen system.I downloaded lime wire then music burn it to cd. when I am done I boot to a restore all gone.This means your music and lime included will not be saved.I strongly recomend not playing the cd back to your pc for playing.use external player such as car or home audio.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2008
  5. ellison64

    ellison64 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2003
    Posts:
    2,587
    Depending if you want specific tracks or not , many have found screamer radios presets to be adequate for recording various music,because it has built in record function that creates.mp3.The downside of course is you cant choose what song is playing ,however the genres include all sorts .Ive made many a cd with it.Just an alternative that you may like .
    http://www.screamer-radio.com/about/
    ellison
     
  6. emperordarius

    emperordarius Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2008
    Posts:
    1,218
    Location:
    Who cares
    Limewire is the cleanest p2p app I tried, actually.
    eMule is good, but more than half of the searches resulted in infected files.
    I would suggest the Old BearShare 5 (The Lite version, which has no adware bundled, because the new version really sucks).
    You could also try Shareaza, which supports Gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey Network, BitTorrent, FTP and HTTP network protocols and handles magnet links, ed2k links, Piolet links, and the now deprecated Gnutella links.
    Just remember to check Bitzi Tickets!
    But it wouldn't bad either trying to use the old pirate bay...
     
  7. C.S.J

    C.S.J Massive Poster

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2006
    Posts:
    5,029
    Location:
    this forum is biased!
    i suggest a different alternative for downloads than p2p clients like limewire and emule.

    mIRC and torrents are 2 decent alternatives.
     
  8. bman412

    bman412 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2008
    Posts:
    261
    Cabos :thumb: but that's basically just another limewire alternative client for gnutella
     
  9. HURST

    HURST Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2007
    Posts:
    1,419
    In my case, LimeWire was a malware magnet. So I stopped using it over a year ago.
    I now use uTorrent, great for whole albums or compilations. Not so great for single songs.

    BTW; it's IMPOSSIBLE (as in not possible) to legally download music in my country. The only online store that works is iTunes and they don't accept local credit cards. Therefore ALL mp3's in my country are illegal... Which doesn't make me proud and I compesate it by being one of the few over here that actually pays for software.
    I do buy CD's sometimes, or order them from amazon.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2008
  10. Saraceno

    Saraceno Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2008
    Posts:
    2,405
    For music downloads, it doesn't always have as many options as Limewire, but SkreemR kicks ass.
    SkreemR
    http://www.skreemr.com

    It's a search engine for locating audio files on the web.

    Since using it, I haven't needed to use Limewire anymore. Just right-click on the file and select 'save target as'.

    If you're generating too many general responses, click on 'advanced search' where you can put say the album you want and the bitrate.

    Also allows you to stream the song before downloading to see if it is the one you want.
     
  11. WSFuser

    WSFuser Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2004
    Posts:
    10,639
    My recommendation is eMule (for single tracks) or torrents (for albums)
     
  12. dw426

    dw426 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2007
    Posts:
    5,543
    Here's my take:

    1. Bearshare, Kazaa, and the Gnutella network in general is a prime RIAA breeding ground (RIAA being the people you may have heard about that try to sue the music industry problems away that they themselves caused). Do NOT use it.

    2. Emule is great for rare files and a lot of popular ones. It also has the backup of KAD in case the normal networks go kaput. Emule is safe IF A: You get a clean server list. B. You use the IP filter that comes with Emule AND tick the option "Filter servers too", and C. Use an IP Blocker like Peerguardian 2. In fact, using Peerguardian is basically mandatory regardless of the P2P client you use. If the bad guys can't connect to your system, they have that much harder of a time trying to accuse you of downloading illegal songs, software, whatever. Information about all this can be found in Emules forums very easily.

    Emule also has Obfusication abilities, which help with ISPs that look out for that kind of internet traffic and also slows down your connection. Keep in mind, the downside of Emule is that depending on the file you want, it can be very very slow in downloading.

    3. Torrenting. Overall best way to get things and get them speedily, providing you have enough seeders (people sharing the file). This is the P2P method that will generally give you files as fast as your connection will let you, again, provided there is a good amount of seeds, the tracker (the place hosting the file link) is up and running, and all the other things that make or break a connection speed.

    The downside to torrenting is that people tend to grab the file and run, without sharing it back, leading to lots of dead files on the public tracker websites. Also, the RIAA likes to hang around the public ones too. But, problems can be avoided with a good IP Blocker as stated previously. Another downside is that the two top Bittorrent clients have recently came under fire for having some not so distant ties to the very people that IP Blocker you'll use is guarding against.

    For instance, uTorrent went through literal hell because the guy who created it sold it to the people who made the original Bittorent client, who made a deal with the MPAA and such folks to provide only legal torrents (this also opens up the risk of coding in the software to "tell on you" when downloading illegal files since uTorrent is a closed source app) After much back and forth yelling, threatening and lots of other hell-raising by people, it was generally decided to take a "wait and see" approach, and the hissyfits are all but gone now.

    I myself use uTorrent, and, though I do see my IP Blocker blocking connections back to the aforementioned original Bitttorrent network people, so far, so good. Azeurus was also once highly regarded until they started showing signs of the same thing uTorrent took so much heat for, by putting "Vuze" into their network and software, which is a legal network within the client. Also, Azeurus is based on Java, which makes it kind of pokey to use, plus it has gone from a fairly simplistic client to settings overload, which makes it easier to screw things up and find a non-working client if you aren't careful.

    There are other Bittorent clients to use of course, however, many have either terribly slow updates or have seemingly been abandoned. Some have been banned for having features that help get around sharing (Bitcomet and clients based on it come to mind). And, some lack security features such as obfusication, DHT, and such that help against ISP throttling connections and help when networks go down.

    Sorry for that long speech, I just wanted to lay out the options and the downsides to them. If you torrent, do try to get in a private website. Yes, you will have to abide by more rules and share what you take, but that's what makes torrenting the better option anyway, right? Without sharing back, all of these options would have been long ago put to rest.

    You know, it's a funny thing. I've seen some posts above telling you to "keep your nose clean" and buy from stores. Well, here in the U.S, music stores are shutting their doors, so that option is getting harder to do. Cute, isn't it? The music industry threatens you so you'll go to their stores and buy the music legit, then they close down the legit stores because the illegal downloaders are losing them money and the legit stores can't stay open.

    I don't believe in the current "download store" like iTunes. For one, too many of these places make you pay again if something happens to the download. Also, I'm not fond of being told what I can and can't do with something I buy.
     
  13. dw426

    dw426 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2007
    Posts:
    5,543
    IF, he chooses to use uTorrent or Azeurus, he can search for albums with the song on it he wants, and only select that file to download and not the entire thing. Just another tidbit of info.
     
  14. HURST

    HURST Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2007
    Posts:
    1,419
    Another option is Ares. Friends say it's great and they find almost every song, but it has never worked properly on my system.
    There is also a "lite" version.

    I used to use emule, until the donkeyservers where brought down last year. Haven't tried it since.
     
  15. dw426

    dw426 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2007
    Posts:
    5,543
    The servers are back in action :) About Ares, is that not the one that you basically have to be invited into the nodes? I think I had tried that and could never get any downloads going.
     
  16. acr1965

    acr1965 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2006
    Posts:
    4,995
    I have been trying many alternative things for music. But I keep going back to playlist.com. No downloads. Somehow the playlist can be uploaded to foobar but I have not figured out how yet.
     
  17. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2003
    Posts:
    23,934
    Location:
    SW. Oklahoma

    Screamer radio works very well. I have quite a collection of music from there.
     
  18. dw426

    dw426 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2007
    Posts:
    5,543

    Not a clue. I've been hunting the forums and translating Portugese Google results (why all Portugese?), and haven't found anything telling me exactly how to do it.
     
  19. Vista FTW

    Vista FTW Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2008
    Posts:
    6


    So is SkreemR actually safe because Iwant to be absolutly sure.

    And thanks for all the quick replys guys.
     
  20. MikeNAS

    MikeNAS Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2006
    Posts:
    697
    Location:
    FiNLAND
    Couple of dollars for a album is so low price that I don't see any point to use p2p. I use Soundsbox (http://www.soundsbox.com/).
     
  21. cheater87

    cheater87 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2005
    Posts:
    3,289
    Location:
    Pennsylvania.
    Use a Torrent program. Bittorrent is quite good. Some people don't feel like paying 30 dollars for ONE good song on an entire cd. :p
     
  22. Saraceno

    Saraceno Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2008
    Posts:
    2,405
    You're not going to get any 'zip files' or have numerous ports on your computer open, or have a program wanting to update to the net without you wanting it to.

    To explain how SkreemR works, say I have a blog page where a couple of my favourite tracks are playing, you can listen to them as my site loads, but you're unable to download the track.

    SkreemR grabs what would normally be a 'hidden link' and allows you to download the file directly. If I had a blog page, I wouldn't even know you were downloading/had access to my song! ;) It's actually using a google search string (which I can find if you're really after it), but presenting the google search string in a more presentable manner. Rating its bit rate, song length, and where the file is coming from.

    Think of it as the same as google images, which is trawling the web for all the images you request on the one page. For you to find those images directly could take you hours.

    No software to install either. If you see the file is coming from an untrustworthy source, just choose the next one (such as free songs even sites like Amazon is hosting). If a song is playing on a website, it's as good as yours. :) :thumb:
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2008
  23. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2003
    Posts:
    2,381
    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    Less than 1% for me, I only have a few reliable servers in my server list as there are some out there that try and put fake results at the top.
    I also run an ipfilter (bluetack.co.uk's) because this is good for blocking bad servers and clients.
     
  24. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2003
    Posts:
    2,381
    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    No need at all for peerguardian if you use emules ipfilters. You can use bluetack.co.uk's list, which is the same one peerguardian uses, the other popular ipfilters use bluetack's as a base as well.
     
  25. NGRhodes

    NGRhodes Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2003
    Posts:
    2,381
    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    There are some totally unrelated servers up with SIMILAR names, but they are not the famous Donkeyservers.

    They are classed as reliable servers though according to gruk and peerates.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.