BearShare vs. Limewire vs. Morpheus vs. WinMX etc.

Factual Questions
1

I was looking through questions from this past week (I don’t get the chance to access this site as often as I would like), and I came across a thread entitled

and I had a question which I cannot pose because the thread is now locked.

So I’ll start my own thread and ask it!
The thread mentioned several examples of programs: Morpheus, Limewire, E-donkey, WinMX, and Kazaa.

No one mentioned the one I use, called BearShare. (Available at BearShare.com)

I don’t use it much, but I was under the impression that BearShare is just like Limewire (even though I’ve never used Limewire).

My question(s): Are all these programs roughly the same, each just using the gnutella protocall for peer-to-peer network connectivity? (Any of you actually use BearShare?)

Is there a difference in the effectiveness or ease of use of any one over the others, or one that is worse than the others?

Is there a difference in the number or type of users who use these different programs, such that particular ones have a significant larger connected-user base at any given time, or that certain types of files are more readily availble on different programs?

Consider this an inquiry into socio-network patterns and not a means of doing anything that would violate any copyrite laws.

2

BearShare, LimeWire, and the new Morpheus all use the Gnutella network. The only difference is the features - some clients have intelligent routing to save bandwidth and get quicker results, some clients can download one file from more than one host at a time, etc.

KaZaA, Grokster, and the old Morpheus are essentially the same program, and they all use the FastTrack network, which seems better all around than Gnutella. The problem is that KaZaA and Grokster are both chock full of spyware, and the old Morpheus doesn’t work anymore.

WinMX uses OpenNap (Napster protocol) servers, as well as its own P2P network called WPNP. WinMX 2.0 doesn’t have as many features as FastTrack or some of the Gnutella clients; WinMX 3.0 beta does (most importantly, downloading from multiple hosts) but the 3.0 beta network is much smaller than the 2.0 production network.

Of course, these services are only to be employed for their substantial noninfringing uses. This post is not an endorsement of any illegal activity.

3

The thread was closed because file-sharing is illegal.

This thread is closed also.

Whan a thread is closed, it’s for a reason. Don’t re-open this topic.

Thank you.

DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator