Gnutella

Pros: Find tons of stuff out there.
Cons: And find no users who want to share it with you.

After Napster started getting all finicky and blocking songs that had nothing to do with the RIAA, to the point at which, despite the fact that most of my music is non-RIAA, I was sharing 7 songs...out of 1244. I knew I needed to find alternate sources...

Pros: Terabytes of files, completely anonymous
Cons: Usually slow download speeds, pranksters nuking users

How many people on the internet today haven't heard of Napster? I'm guessing the number is pretty small. How many of you have heard of Gnutella though?

For those who don't know, Gnutella is a paradigm shift in the ability to share data and...

Pros: Small download, free
Cons: Slow and pretty darn ugly.

Pros: Download movies, music, games and more...
Cons: Slow...

Ok, first they kill Scour, possibly THE best file sharing software ever. It had it all - it was cool looking, fast, and had some of the best features ever. It was truly a sad day when they shut it down. Now after months of struggling the file sharing...

Pros: You can find just about everything
Cons: Peer to Peer, so no stabile file locations like an ftp, poor bandwidth ratings

Bearshare is a Gnutella based application that connects to other Bearshare applications and other Gnutella based programs. It can be downloaded for free from Bearshare.com.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about Bearshare. I have been able to...

Pros: Uses any file format
Cons: No central server, Somewhat difficult, Buggy

Gnutella was released in March of this year not so much as a radical program - but as a radical way of looking at the community-based sharing programs. Developing their own transfer protocol where every user acts as its own "servant" for part...

Pros: The "perfect" method of sharing every file ever available. It's there, somewhere
Cons: Huge technological shortfalls, confusing client software

What is GNUTELLA
I’ve read about this being some kind of peanut butter spread, or processed peanut product. I have yet to find any conclusive evidence regarding that, but my reference (from here on out) to Gnutella will be to the Gnutella...

Pros: can find stuff other than mp3s
Cons: VERY slow, not too user friendly, bandwidth eaten up even after using

Almost having a near heart attack when I heard that Napster was going down, I started looking into alternatives to getting my share of internet music. Gnutella had been mentioned on the news, newspapers, and such so I decided to give them a try.
...

Pros: Shares any file format, small download
Cons: hard to figure out, slow transfer times, slow searching, GUI confusing

I started looking for different file sharing programs as soon as the word got out about the Napster lawsuit. This was the first one I found so I gave it a shot. It took about 1 minute to download, and installing it was easy. Once installed, you open...

Pros: Alternative way of getting music and movies; free; impossible to shut down; nice interface
Cons: Slow; potential for viruses; sometimes misrepresented files

Gnutella is fast becoming a new medium on the Internet. As it stands now, we have email, IRC, news groups, and the World Wide Web. Some might argue instant messaging belongs on the list, but there is no widely-accepted protocol, and thus instant...

Pros: Powerful, Versatile, Great potential
Cons: Extremely vulnerable to abuse, can be somewhat difficult to use

While the title was meant as a joke, I've actually already seen more than one report where the makers of Nutella (the spread) criticize Gnutella's (the software) supposed copyright infringement. I'm not sure how many people would be confused by the...

Pros: Relative anonymity, low chance of being shut down
Cons: Slow and quirky but has huge potential

Note: The following epinion does not reflect the views of Epinions, Inc., my employer.

I write this on the evening following Judge Patel's decision to hold up the injunction against Napster, forcing it to shut down later this week. This is a...

Pros: Easy access to worldwide file sharing
Cons: unfriendly design

If you read my other opinions, you'll realize that I don't speak hyperbolically very often. But extreme statements are the only things that will describe Gnutella, an ingenious file-sharing program that should replace Napster quickly as THE file-sharing...

Pros: Wide variety of files, harder to shutdown than Napster
Cons: MP3 searches not as effective(w/o bitrates and song lengths displayed)

Introduction I’m not going to write this review on Gnutella, essentially, Gnutella sucks. The concept of it however, is great. Distributed network, individual hosts, semi-anonymous. But what makes it better are the front ends that are made for ...

Pros: HUGE NUMBER OF FILES BEING SHARED (MORE THAN NAPSTER, THOUGH NOT ALL AUDIO)
Cons: Bad client software = kruddy experience.

My opinion on Gnutella is actually based on ONLY the best Gnutella client I have come across to date - LimeWire. I would rate it 4 stars! Great, but hey - file-sharing protocols can only be sooo exciting :)

Gnutella's main advantage is...