The New Napster?

During a management lecture last week, we were told that in no way whatsoever should anyone contemplate using the Internet to find resources for essay research. Initially I was shocked, as I have found the Internet an integral part of the research process for all my previous essays at uni. It was then explained that the problem with the Internet was that the majority of students could not tell a legitimate resource from “total crap” and it was leading to many student basing their essays on resources that were “total crap” and thus producing essays of similar nature. This is obviously an issue that arises from the nature of the net and its ability to give ‘anyone and everyone’ the power to publish their own ideas regardless of legitimacy or quality. Obviously this is an issue that will have to be tackled in the future as the Internet goes from strength to strength and becomes the center of our everyday lives. Interestingly this problem also plagues the area of file sharing programs, for which I will devote the rest of the blog.

For many, their first experience of the file-sharing world came in the form of Napster. It was the industry standard on which we could all rely, then it went legit. The market was then flooded with many programs, leaving the user to the nightmare of wading through the sea of lackluster programs to find the best. Nabeel mentioned in his lecture on music that his file sharing program of choice was Limewire, and this seems to be the closest to winning the spot of the true 'Napster predecessor’. I have been through the trials and tribulations of using programs such as Kazaa, Morpheus and BearShare, but Limewire comes out the clear winner for various reasons. Firstly it includes no spyware or adware at all. A natural positive side effect of this is that as the Limewire.com website claims it's "the fastest file sharing program on the planet' for the very reason that it doesn't have all the extra baggage (adware and spyware) to slow it down. More importantly corrupt files are virtually non-existent on Limewire. Meaning that your time can be efficiently used actually downloading files rather than having to hunt down a clean file among the sea of corrupt ones, which seem to have been flooded onto the other networks by the recording industry. All in all, an ‘absolutely fantastic’ program. For the budget conscious the free version does the job fine (http://www.limewire.com/english/content/download.shtml) or if you want some extra features shelling out $18.88 US will get you the more advanced ‘Limewire Pro’.

btw. If you feel that you would like the extra features but your wallet says no, there's an easy way to get round this. Download the free version, run it and do a program search for 'Limewire'. Up will pop a list of the LimewirePro install program on the hard drives of other uses that have paid for it, download one of these, uninstall the free version and install the pro version, and your away! - All the added benefits without the cost. If your feeling bad about ripping off Limewire, here’s a little ‘food for thought’. In effect all you are doing is ripping off an organization that makes a living out of helping others rip off the film, television and music industries! Not so bad after all.

Happy sharing,

Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan