Beyond Napster: file sharing programs continue to abound - Science Today

One of the most popular uses of the Internet today is for downloading mp3's and videos through file-sharing programs. Many obstacles have stood in our way since this first became an option, but with the rise of the concept's popularity, these obstacles have been abolished by the strivings of people all around the world.

A broadband, or near broadband connection is most definitely required, unless you want to sit for hours waiting for your 56 K modem to download large audio or graphic files. Of course, this is implied in the term file-sharing.

High-speed Internet connections, according to many people, have taken hold of our society by the necks specifically for the purpose of downloading large files in virtually no time at all.

In way of getting music, specific applications have become household names. A very common name in the file-sharing world is Napster. A once-free application, most songs were readily found and downloaded with little trouble. If you don't mind the user fee that will soon be attached to registration of a username and password, there are some advantages to using Napster.

First of all, after download, the installation and registration parts are quick and painless, with simple prompts for a username and password, and then you can connect and find what you want. Some of the appeal to Napster lies in the options available: chat with other users online; visit a library according to your musical taste; search; view your "hot list," in which you can keep track of the files available according to your personal taste; transfer, so you can view the status of the files you are downloading or uploading, and get help via the web.

So, what are the drawbacks to using Napster? There has been the complaint that it's difficult to find users that actually have the file you're looking for. When searching for a file that you can't seem to find, every time you reconnect, you are logged onto a different server with a whole new group of users that might have the file you are looking for. So, it may get tiresome to keep disconnecting and reconnecting, but more times out of none, you eventually find that sought-after file. It would be nicer to have all servers linked together to satisfy more users, and it has been rumored that this will become a reality very soon for Napster.

Napster also does nothing for Macintosh users, although there has been promise of a Mac version for quite sometime, so for all of you out there with a Mac, there are other options.

Macster is the most logical answer for Mac users. With a huge selection of songs, easily downloadable in a couple of minutes with a DSL connection, Macster also makes use of some of the attractive options that made Napster so appealing. You can chat with other users and view their profiles, the mp3 quality is generally very high, search queries usually return a variety of users from which to download the particular song and it is, after all, free.

Gnutella is an attractive option for file-sharing for many different reasons. Lacking a central server, clients are connected directly with one another, and thus Gnutella can share any type of file. Making its debut on the net in the spring of 2000, there was immediately much opposition to the program and a parent company AOL shut it down. But the source code for Gnutella was readily available and free, and the public is greatly encouraged to write their own code or improve upon the old, so there is no stopping Gnutella now.

Gnutella is very attractive because it is quick and easy and very explanatory. There are no unnecessary chat rooms, and the file-downloading process is clearly outlined in the instructions. The popularity of this program is rising exponentially, so there is a very high probability that you will find what you are looking for.

There are different hosts to this program, such as GnutellaNet, and they are easily found on the homepage under "Need a Host?" The nice thing about Gnutella is that it is possible to stream files instead of downloading them, which is particularly useful when you want to sample an audio file as opposed to downloading the entire file.

There are many other file-sharing programs out there on the web and you're probably wondering why I didn't include them here. It gets cumbersome to outline the attractive properties of all the different programs out there when they are mostly the same sort of program, with little variation from one another. It's important to find a program with a large number of users to ensure quick and reliable download of the particular file you are looking for.

Personally, I like Morpheus, which can be found at musiccity.com. I have never had any trouble finding audio or video files that I am looking for, which is saying a lot when considering my obscure musical taste. So, when you want to be a cheapskate like me, do some research, find the file-sharing program you like best and download away!