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Limewire Gets Ads, And Accusations of Spyware 288

Posted by timothy from the who-sends-what-to-whom-and-how dept.
Gerard J. Pinzone writes: "Limewire 1.8 now comes with mandatory banner ads. The reasons given by one of their developers, Christopher Rohrs, for the new ads are that 'Bandwidth alone from www.limewire.com, www.limewire.org, and router.limewire.com is around $10,000 month! And we need to pay developer's salaries--like mine--to keep driving innovation on the Gnutella network.' On top of all this, the banner ad software Limewire is using is "Cydoor". Many users are complaining that this is spyware. Here is a link to the message in the Gnutella forums where this topic is being discussed"
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Limewire Gets Ads, And Accusations of Spyware More

Limewire Gets Ads, And Accusations of Spyware

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  • WAS around 10k, now is... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:34AM (#2557091)

    Bandwidth alone ... is around $10,000 month!

    That's the pre-SlashdotEffect figure, right?/p.

  • ...and we lose another free service to the megacorporations.

  • Installation of Cydoor is OPTIONAL! (Score:5, Informative)

    by MarcQuadra ( 129430 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:36AM (#2557096)
    Well I installed LimeWire 1.8 a few days ago and it ASKS you if you want to install Gator and/or cydoor. I said no and LimeWire is essentially the same as 1.7 (but with a banner)

  • Screw Limewire... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by J.C.B. ( 141141 )
    ...use gnut [gnutelliums.com] like the real men. There's no way in hell it's going to get banner ads.

  • Geez (Score:5, Funny)

    by LS ( 57954 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:38AM (#2557101) Homepage
    Non-story. Limewire is open source. Go download it and remove any ads if you want, whiny bitches:

    http://limewire.limewire.org/servlets/ProjectHom e
    • Exactly, and if you can't figure out how to do that, then there are a dozen other servents that you can download and run -- many of which I like better than LimeWire anyway. That's the beauty of both the gnutella network and open source in general - *choice*.

    • Re:Geez (Score:5, Informative)

      by rbeattie ( 43187 ) <russ@russellbeattie.com> on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @08:49AM (#2557809) Homepage

      I was about to call you names back. But then I CVSed the source and low-and-behold, if you download it and compile it yourself (very, very easy with Apache Ant - there's even a batch file to do it) it's the same version (1.8) but WITHOUT the ad stuff. You don't even have to muss with the code.

      http://core.limewire.org/servlets/ProjectSource

      Very nice. (Thanks for being a jerk.) ;-)

      -Russ
  • Spyware is an ethical concern, with impediments to privacy and entailing much.

    But what is also of note is the lousy java coding, notably the lax java installer. Even compiling it from source is a time. Segmentation faults (fixed with ulimit) is still not enough.

    As a minor suggestion, try gtk-gnutella.

    (http://gtk-gnutella.sourceforge.net)

    Works great, open development: a better sort of karma.

    . . .this is merely opinion
  • ... all the more reason to use the open-sourced version... remember? [slashdot.org]

    I notice that limewire.org still advertises 1.7 as the most recent version.

  • Problems (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Raven42rac ( 448205 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:42AM (#2557119)
    I have absolutely no hard feelings against using banner ads, they may be a nuisance, but you know, these people have families, and they need to eat, but spyware is the most insidious, dispicable, underhanded way of making a profit, and any company who uses such "utilities" should be sued for theft of our bandwidth, in my humble opinion, i wonder how much money in bandwidth has been stolen from Joe Consumer by these numerous programs that employ spyware, i would like to see that statistic.

  • Bearshare has it too (Score:5, Informative)

    by MxTxL ( 307166 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:42AM (#2557120)
    Bearshare pops up to an immediate ad, and also usually spawns a browser window to show an ad. Pretty annoying, but it's not a big deal to just close the spawned window and get on with your business... not really a big deal if limewire does it... besides, if it helps keep them in business, then i say go for it!
    • Bearshare alse puts unwanted icons in your start menu asking you to install the optional software you declined, which in my mind is unethical. What is with these coders, have they no honor?

    • Re:Bearshare has it too (Score:5, Informative)

      by tcc ( 140386 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @02:01AM (#2557317) Homepage Journal
      Aside from the fact that when I tried bearshare last year, it DIDN'T ASK me if I wanted to install extra stuff, I was running norton internet security, and guess what I found? A nice little program that was running in the background, ALWAYS pluging EVERY site I was visiting in a database somewhere before going to connect to that typed site I sent, all this transparent if you didn't have any firewalling software installed. (I kept seeing a connection to some place that I didn't know of), I uninstalled bearshare, guess what, it stayed there! (standard uninstaller, not cleansweep or any advanced cleaners).

      What pissed me off the most about this is NOWHERE in the install process or the website from front page to download link was this indicated.

      I was happy to see alternative to napster, but I was REALLY angry at the fact that people are installing spying crap on my system not EVEN with small notices anywhere in the install or download process! That happened after the REAL.COM spyware fiasco, I thought people learned, I'm sure today it's not doing it anymore for that precise example (after a zillion complain probably)

      But WHY do we have to go thru this?? these people should be treated the same way VIRUS WRITERS would be, heck, you can get jailed in some contries just to try to log in a .mil site for fun or do portscanning on any major sites, why the heck do these people install stuff that tracks your every moves and gets out of it with not even a scratch? 20$ you'd write something like that and treat it with a virus label, you'd get fined and jailed! I stopped using bearshare from that day and told all my friends, sent an article here about it and all the specs but it got rejected.

      Anyways, I can't beleive people are still pulling that stunt, mandatory banner adds, it's okay in my book, even if it's totally useless and normally it means that the application will die (because who click these adds anyways?! the only advertising system I saw working were porn sites and some loyal people on a specific site (i.e. Here probably). The fact is they SAY so, they WARN you, if you go thru the process and something slows down your system or tracks your moves, at least you know! that's the BIG difference and even if it's almost ironic to say, I guess with all the spycrap around, people being honnest about the stuff they install on your system should get a praise. (yike!!)

      ----
      | Bearshare pops up to an immediate ad, and also usually spawns a browser window to show an ad. Pretty annoying, but it's not a big deal to just close the spawned window and get on with your business... not really a big deal if limewire does it... besides, if it helps keep them in business, then i say go for it!
      • "Anyways, I can't beleive people are still pulling that stunt, mandatory banner adds, it's okay in my book, even if it's totally useless and normally it means that the application will die (because who click these adds anyways?"

        You're assuming that they are making money on clickthroughs exclusively and not on all the other data that they collect from you. Who really knows how much data mining these things do on your PC, without your knowledge or consent?

        I am as paranoid about this kind of software as I am about people cracking into my machine. They are both non-consensual, and offer no information about their motives.

        TREAT ADWARE / SPYWARE WITH EXTREME CAUTION!!!!!!!
  • Yeah, "mandatory" unless I filter them out the way I filter out Grokster's banners and eDonkey 2000's banners and the banners of every single web page I visit.

    As for spyware, that's bad mojo. While I don't doubt that initially my kung-fu would best it, how do I know that it doesn't detect that the spyware is missing and redownload it in the background? Sure, I could scan my system regularly with OptOut but that would mean trusting Steve Gibson...

    • Re:Mandatory, eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by K8Fan ( 37875 )
      Sure, I could scan my system regularly with OptOut but that would mean trusting Steve Gibson...

      Two problems with this though:

      1. Steve Gibson no longer produces OptOut.
      2. Who would have a problem trusting a guy who has expended so much effort pointing out the problem in the first place?
  • I remember sniffing my connection with Gator running and noticed that it was sending lots of statistics back to the Gator collective. Bad, Bad, Bad. I don't know if it is still like that, but I for one won't touch it or any app that includes it with a ten foot pole.

    • Re:Gator (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DarkZero ( 516460 )
      The entire POINT of Gator is to be spyware, much like the Comet Cursor. It offers a free and stupid little feature to attract as many people as possible for the purpose of getting spyware on their computer. Of course it still uses it, because it still exists!

  • As if... (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by x136 ( 513282 )
    ...it wasn't slow enough.

    Damn Java.

    • Re:As if... (Score:2, Informative)

      by jeffy124 ( 453342 )
      actually, it aint java that's slow (unless you have an old JVM). It's the network connections going from point to point along the network combined with the fact that the guy who coded Limewire didnt know how to use Java effectively, hence the code is very ineffecient.

      • Re:As if... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Adam Fisk ( 536262 )
        Apparently you have not looked at the LimeWire source. If you had, you would know that LimeWire was coded by a team, and that the LimeWire source is quite well engineered and well documented. I would recommend giving it a look at www.limewire.org. If you find specific performance bottlenecks, please feel free to e-mail me anytime at afisk@limewire.org. (think profiler). Thanks. Adam Fisk LimeWire Team
  • it won't be long before spyware is considered an act of terrorism, unless it's the government's spyware!
  • Regardless of server costs -- or whatever ... Spyware is wrong -- it should be illegal. I also dont trust the "wolf" here submitting a story about their being no wolves in sheeps clothing.

  • MSN sure has great software (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:46AM (#2557137)
    You know! I can get great music over at MSN. There is a free media player called the Microsoft Media player which has a special format called WMA. With WMA you can get cd quality over music at only 64k bit-rates! According to the link inside teh the media player settings, its far supperior to mp3! Microsoft also confirms its better as do the major record labels. The record labels recommend it? Wow! This is some great stuff. ALmost as good as AOL. Now AOL is for real hackers. Too bad it doesn't have free music. I am concerned about the thieves who use gnutella. At least I am legal by trusting Microsoft. You should all trust them more often.

  • is linking them on the frontpage supposed to be some sort of punishment? it definatly not going to keep the bandwidth budget down.

  • Gnutella? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by npietraniec ( 519210 ) <npietran.resistive@net> on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:47AM (#2557148) Homepage
    Who's still using Gnutella? GiFT [sourceforge.net] just had a breakthrough with the development of ShadowFT [www.dddi.nl]

    Download it. Give it a try...
    • Where's the breakthrough? The latest news update as of two weeks ago indicates they still haven't found a way around being blocked from the FastTrack network.

      • Re:Gnutella? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by juju2112 ( 215107 )
        Check out the Introduction part of the README [www.dddi.nl]

        Here's an exerpt:


        There are some efforts to create a completely open FastTrack alternative,
        under the name "openFT". However, any such new network would require large
        amounts of popular content before people will switch to using it. The FT
        network, with on average 500,000+ users online, provides enormous amounts
        of readily available content, but the closed nature of it seems to prevent
        transferring this content to other networks' search facilities.

        Fortunately, the FT protocol apparently specifies that every FT "node"
        (i.e. computer running FT software) should have a small HTTP-like server
        running on port 1214 that can produce a plaintext list or index of shared
        files on that node, when asked for it. So, when the IP address of a FT
        node is known, the index can be requested and shared via different means
        than the FT network. This is what shadowFT is all about.

        • Ah, sounds rather interesting in that case. The major problem is that this scheme eliminates anybody who cannot accept incoming connections on port 1214, which is a rather large number of high-bandwidth college students who on the current FastTrack network serve as one of the primary groups of content providers. That and the apparent lack of a Windows client.

    • Well, last time I check, GiFT had severe issues due to the ever-changing FastTrack protocol. This appears to be largely to keep open source clients that don't want to connect to a central "authorization server" from working, but I can't say for certain.

      Anyhow, here is the press release [sourceforge.net] giving a better picture of the gory details.

    • since Kazza changed their protocol to a server-centric model (go read the link you just posted). Besides, QTella [sf.net] kicks Limewire's butt anays.

  • So? (Score:3, Flamebait)

    by man_ls ( 248470 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:48AM (#2557151)
    I haven't used LimeWire since I discovered the KaZaa family of networks. LimeWire seems to have the same problem Gnutella did about two years ago - the network is *SO* huge that it fragments and you can't find anything. Most things >100MB (i.e. DivX movie trailers, etc...) are either interrupted due to dropped routing, or killed by the other host. The only thing I get in the "search monitor" is:

    (this is a snippit of my LimeWire 1.07 search monitor I fired up just for this post. 5 seconds generated these queries):
    xxx
    kiddy f*ck
    *.mp3
    "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" [vv].avi
    nudist
    Windows XP Professional.iso
    how to hack
    *.mp3
    porn.jpg
    l33t warez
    ts.wasco*.avi
    12 year old
    *.mp3
    GOD DAMNIT PEOPLE USE THIS AS A CHAT CLIENT
    a.gif
    kazaa

    and it continues.

    Conclusion: There's nothing good ON the Gnutella network. (!= The Gnutella Network is not good.)

  • Better way to do Ads (Score:4, Informative)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @12:52AM (#2557163) Journal
    Pud of Fucked Company has a better way to do ads. You can see how he does it here:

    www.httpads.com [httpads.com]

    Basically he allows other people to do impulse buying of ads on his website. Very Interesting, and useful

    And yes, he is making money on this angle.

  • Playboy.com was the biggest ad. "Get a subscription for $1."

    Too bad they didn't integrate their ads with their software for people that filter out adult content.
  • Looking at the dslreports ads [dslreports.com], a T1 costs about $500/month. A T1 has about 200kB/s bandwidth, and $10,000 should get around 20 T1s, so they should be using around 4MB/s. Why do they need that much bandwidth for one-time 5MB downloads? Why don't they just ask people to mirror the files?
    • I imagine it has more to do with router.limewire.com. When you first fire up limewire, it looks to the central router to find other hosts--a fairly practical solution to the "who is my nearest neighbor" problem. Thousands (millions?) of limewire users pinging this server==lots of bandwidth. PLUS the download and website. Just a thought.

      However, it seems to me that adding advertising is only going to increase their bandwidth (high cost) for very little return (is anyone still buying ads on the web?). I guess porn sites will find a niche, but that's about it. Seems like a dumb move to me.

  • An Obsession with Spyware! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @01:09AM (#2557203)
    It seems like "everyone" these days is paranoid about spyware lurking in their software, programs designed to monitor your precious packets as they bounce around the internet.

    Either don't install these add-ons (most installers ask these days) or set up your firewall to deny outgoing connections to them (you do have a firewall, right?). Failing that, run a filtering proxy like Proxomitron [flaaten.dk] (Windows only, Linux equivalents exist). If you're not to scared to compile the source yourself, get the latest build [limewire.org] of LimeWire's source and customize it the way you like, as was mentioned in a previous post.

    When you send and receive e-mail messages through your ISP, they could easily figure out what times of day you get the most mail, when you send the most mail, your average file attachment size, etc. just by doing a statistical analysis of the mail server's log files; but no one talks about how SendMail could be spyware!

    What's wrong with a little data mining? A lot, most would say. Every time you purchase something with your debit card or use coupons at the grocery store, you're telling some large corporation about your habits (this is old news to most). What's the difference if a piece of spyware watches what you do in Internet Explorer? You lose a little privacy? You lose your sanity? You lose your favourite box of rusty nails? ..

    Seems pretty silly to me to worry about things like that when you could just uninstall the software, kill the spyware with Ad-Aware (or your axe of choice) and try a different product. Even better, write your own client and be done with it :)
    • >What's wrong with a little data mining?

      Gebus, some of us write web based software.

      What may be casual statistics of YOUR browsing habbits, would be theft of my IP and source code to projects i'm working on.

      Even if I use HTTPS, it doesn't matter, cause these proggies are directly part of Internet Explorer.

      How does this affect the casual browser? What stops one of these programs from collecting a lot of credit card data?

    • Re:An Obsession with Spyware! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by H310iSe ( 249662 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @02:09AM (#2557336)
      1) spyware is sneaky - you can't just kill it / uninstall it unless you know ... about as much as your average 1st year tech support guy.

      2) as The Register [theregister.co.uk] recently reminded me outbound filtering is useless against any program that has executed on your computer (because it's easy to piggyback your information on another service that already has outbound permissions) - I'm not sure any spyware does this but...

      3) it's fine if someone want to try to track me from somewhere else but my computer in my home is ... well, it's mine, and in my home, it's my private home thing and it's a castle or something (under american law, after all, I can shoot someone if they break into my home so if a spyware sneaks into my computer and stealthily steals (?) from me can't I shoot the CEO of Disney who buys the information to see if I'm a good candidate for the re-release of Snow White?) so THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE UNLESS I INVITE THEM IN (kinda like a vampire, no?)

      4) have I mentioned spyware is sneaky? real sneaky - it won't tell you it's installed, it won't (always) register w/ uninstall, it runs all sneaky like and sneaks and stuff.

      Poor limewire - they should make money but why can't they do it like NPR, just bug all the limewire users for a week a year for donations?

      • THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE UNLESS I INVITE THEM IN

        Someone didn't read their EULA.
      • under american law, after all, I can shoot someone if they break into my home

        Uhhh... I'm not sure what "american law" you're thinking of, but (to my knowledge) there is no uniform law across all 50 states regarding how you may treat home invaders. Be careful spreading this type of misinformation around unless you have facts. OTOH, I'll quicly admit I'm wrong if you can show me a section of the USC that deals with this issue. As far as I know, this issue is left up to the various states, each of which treats it differently.
    • You are 100% right. That's why I use Free Software. [freebsd.org]

    • Re:An Obsession with Spyware! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by snake_dad ( 311844 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @04:41AM (#2557573) Homepage Journal
      I'll give you one reason: I'm a software developer, and one of those nasty hidden programs fucked up my system at work so bad that certain tools I have to use would not even start anymore.

      It cost me 2 days to find that it was caused by something called newnet2_*.dll (IIRC), which appeared to do something with alternative TLD's. I was damned lucky to find it at that point because by chance I noticed this funny dll-name in the \winnt directory. It came with either Getright or Gozilla, programs that allowed me to resume a rather large download. More info on newnet at counterexploitation [cexx.org].

      I did not know about ad-aware [lavasoftusa.com] at that time. I now run it often, and I use Proxomitron as well. I found proxomitron here [cexx.org], 'official' site is here [cjb.net]. Oh, and don't forget to get new definition files for Ad-Aware regularly!
  • 10 grand/mo eh? That buys something around 5,000 Gigs/mo on the cheap side; what a waste.

    You'd think that just maybe that would be an incentive to USE the distributed network itself to distribute your digitally signed app in order to cut costs.

    Anyway, I recall that BearShare eventually got around to forcing various kinds of "adware" (spyware) down your throat, but after the bitching got to be too much, Vinnie grew half a conscience and instead begged you to Opt-In to the scheme.

    Of course, there's a big difference between LimeWire (open but SLOW as snot), and BearShare (closed but the fastest).

  • Ths sounds suspiciously like the controversy last year over Cydoor adware being clandestiely installed when a user set up the antivirus app InVircible (anybody remember that?). People would find Cydoor on their systems and not know how it got there.

    It eventually turned out that Cydoor was causing urlParse errors on some users' machines, and there followed a big to-do about whether it was possible to remove Cydoor without having to remove InVircible. Wotta mess. The Cydoor people really ought to go back to honest work, like developing those porn-site popup windows that keep reappearing

  • Sending personal data isn't bad, it's the means of collection.
    I strongly believe that if most people were given an option to send data back to companies to offest their costs.. they would! Providing they new exactly what they were sending and had options/selections to choose from. In other words.. I would allow it if I had a menu that I could grant permission to send my physical address, and what type of OS I am using, but not my phone number or email address or my reg codes of my software (looking for piracy.) I have no problem indentifing my gender, age, HS, height, weight, interests ect..

    While some poeple may not want to offer as much as I do, at least it would give everyone an opt in/out and cause the spy-ware to become offer-ware

    And have a much better reputation in the process!
  • There is an economic reality to these free software packages. First, it is a program that allows the sharing of files; files which you may have to pay for in any other circumstance. Second, it is only a banner ad.

    Now, the company they chose to use for adverts may be using some sort of spyware applet. So why isn't someone coming out with a program to prevent these applets from sending accurate information? So what if the company advertising knows that a white male btw. the ages of 25-30 in the pacific northwest is viewing the ad?

    Blargh.

  • Spies (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @01:38AM (#2557266)
    I heard Linux is spyware. Why, with a simple one letter command

    $ w
    ....

    I can see what anybody on a system is doing, in REAL TIME! Imagine what this would mean for marketroids who got ahold of this information!

    The only solution is to delete Linux from your systems now. Here's how:

    $ DELETE LINUX.EXE
    bash: DELETE: command not found

    It's even nice enough to tell you that it's not found anymore. Hope this helps everyone rid their systems of spyware!

  • Sick of entitlement (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PureFiction ( 10256 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @01:43AM (#2557275)
    And we need to pay developer's salaries--like mine--to keep driving innovation on the Gnutella network.

    Gnutella and peer networks in general are going to continue evolving and innovating regardless of whether you specifically are involved.

    If there is one thing I hate about all these projects it is the lame excuses for significant and broad invasions of privacy by people who cannot build a decent business model.

    Instead they take a short cut, sell privacy invasion for a quick fix, and say that it is all for the good of the user.

    Just because it makes money does not mean spyware is a proper or even tolerable method of funding work on your project or business, regardless of what it is.

    Peer networks are about empowering and utilizing individuals communicating at the edge of the network. Invading their privacy like this defeats the purpose and sells everyone short.

    • Isnt a bitch giving things away for free? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rebelcool ( 247749 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @01:53AM (#2557296)
      Of course, if they charged for their software, then there would be no need for ads or spyware.
    • > If there is one thing I hate about all these projects it is the lame excuses for significant and broad invasions of privacy by people who cannot build a decent business model.

      Their business model is selling the privacy of their users to ad-companies.
      You might not like this (hell, I don't either) but you have to accept that it is a pretty decent one, certainly superior to other ideas like pure banner ads or asking for voluntary contributions.

      If you don't like spyware, simply don't use any program that deploys it. Your inane ranting however will do nothing about the mindset of the common Internet user, which is that they accept every oh so damned advertisment scheme as long as they don't have to pay for site content or program licensing.

      And since you have been taking the decision to play the "holier-than-thou" side of this discussion, I invite you to either try to make up a better business plan, or to educate an average 15 years old that paying $5 per month for a service they like isn't so bad...
  • KaZaA has banner ads too, but they're barely noticable. Its not open source either. BUT, I suggest this because sometimes you just want what works, and my experience with kazaa has been great. I thought that napster pretty much sucked...it had a bad interface, my connections were unreliable, and I would get bad download speeds. Half the time I would end up with a partially recorded song once the file was downloaded. So far, kazaa has been fast, I always get the whole thing, and they have a much better selection and quantity than AIMster, etc.


    So, I can see why a lot of people want to use limewire...but if this spyware thing rules it out for you, give kazaa a shot.


  • This is good timing. I was looking for a good Win32 based Gnutella client to use at work and so started looking around at what was available. I was pretty much unimpressed with everything that I tried. It was either addware, spyware, or just bad.

    Limewire did not really impress me. It is Java based. On Windows, that means slow, unresponsive, and buggy. For functionality, I was unimpressed.

    What is the Winamp/xmms of Win32 for Gnutella?

    A lot of people at work seem to use Kazza, but from the NT logs that I see I can tell that it crashes -- a LOT. I do not know much about Morphus.

    • Re:I just tried this (Score:3, Informative)

      by spongman ( 182339 )
      morpheus works just fine for me (win2k, xp) it crashes occasionally (rarely), but it doesn't matter - the downloads are continued when you start it up again...

      if you have a broadband connection and you're looking for a good gnutella client, try Xolox [xolox.nl] it does simultaneous, restartable downloads. it's not as good as morpheus for identifying identical content, and the gnutelly network doesn't support the rich metadata that morpheus has, but it's the best gnutella client i have found, nothing fancy..

  • AdAware, ZoneAlarm, Popup Stopper (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stonecoldt ( 525628 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @01:54AM (#2557298)
    In the old days you worried about viruses. Now, the companies themselves try to take control of your desktop in order to shove ads down your throat. It's a shame you can't trust software developers anymore but at least there's programs like Ad Aware, ZoneAlarm, Popup Stopper, etc that help you fight back. (And negative ratings on download.com help punish spyware-pushing companies too.)

  • WinMX (Score:2, Informative)

    by DarkZero ( 516460 )
    Try WinMX [winmx.com]. It seems to be one of the last P2P programs left that doesn't put Spyware on your computer. It uses the OpenNap, Napster, WinMX, and other networks to search for files, and my experience with it has been pretty good. It's not as popular as the others, but it gets the job done and it does it without spyware.
  • I havent run LimeWire in a long time but I've gotta say that if this article bothers you please stop using LimeWire. They have every right to make money, if you don't like it simply stop using the service. However to even hint that their new marketing strategies are unethical is the height of ignorance. You have choice, exercise it.

  • Kazaa did it to me... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sarcasmooo! ( 267601 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @02:41AM (#2557394)
    I see people saying try Kazaa instead, but on my system it was Kazaa that installed Cydoor. When I used Ad-aware to remove Cydoor, Kazaa refused to run and told me I had removed files it needed and should reinstall.
    • Morpheus is basically the same thing as Kazaa (it's in the same network), but Morpheus allows you to download >128 Kbit MP3s. As and added bonus, there is no spyware in Morpheus.
    • I should mention that I'm running Win98. I forget which P2P programs have Linux versions and which don't. Hell I'm not even sure if spyware works on Linux, but if it does then I'm just clarifying. If it doesn't; that'd make a nice sales pitch for Linux advocates.
    • So run a different Gnutella client. Gnucleus [sourceforge.net] is a good Free Software one.

      Or download the source code to LimeWire (it is open source you know) and take out the ads.

  • And on a regular basis send out an ad for themselves, through the software perhaps, asking for donations. If the donations don't come, or they aren't enough, take the server(s) down once a week, or twice a week, or permanently, whatever, until the donations reach the necessary level.

    Anything but ads! Ads on the computer are just like white noise to me now, my brain has somehow learned to half-ignore them, not registering what they are about, but being annoyed by their presence.

    If they die off because of lack of funds, then, well, natural selection in full effect. Something better will come along.

  • If you're running Windows try this program!!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Newer Guy ( 520108 ) on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @04:01AM (#2557521)
    The program is Ad-Aware. It's a freeware program available at www.lavasoftusa.com Ad aware looks for spyware on your computer and then allows you to (selectively) delete it. You'll be amazed how much can be there. The first time I ran it it found over 200 (!) files on my computer. Needless to say, the computer not only was a lot faster once I deleted all these trojans, but more stable as well. Try it, you'll like it.
    • The first time I ran it it found over 200 (!) files on my computer. Needless to say, the computer not only was a lot faster once I deleted all these trojans, but more stable as well.

      AdAware calls Cookies "spyware", which is a little bit overly paranoid. Cookies are used for data mining, AdAware is right about identifying and removing them, but they are not "trojans".
  • Yes, Fastrack has better features and content right now. Still, gnutella will always be around, and it's going to get better soon. Check out this writeup [yahoo.com] of the gnutella developer meeting at last week's O'Reilly P2P conference and also this one [yahoo.com]. With the addition of hash searches/results (which can enable swarm downloads) and supernodes, gnutella will be competitive with KaZaa and its Fasttrack cohorts.
    • I just browsed the limewire developer website. The next version (1.9) will include cool new download technology and meta search technology (XML based). This stuff just missed the 1.8 release but is expected to be released soon.

      In addition, the major gnutella problem (scalability)is going to be addressed in a beta release shortly after that. Historically, Limewire has releases every few weeks so I suspect a 2.0 could be here before the end of this year. With the introduction of supernodes, gnutella will be as scalable as fasttrack (essentially supernodes are the key difference between the fasttrack protocol and the gnutella protocol). Only it will be open (both the protocol and the implementations). This is very good news.

      I'm increasingly annoyed with the crappy/buggy morpheus interface (kazaa is exactly the same but includes spyware). I experience random crashes and the UI seems to be assembled by a couple of morons. My little sister could do a better job given a 3 day course in VB for dummies.

      I always liked the limewire interface, with the improved search ability it will be a worthy competitor to kazaa/morpheus and with the supernodes in place it will be as scalable as the fasttrack network.

      I really like the way this is evolving. Just as the RIAA is starting to sue Fastrack licensees, something else they deemed irrelevant before is given a new chance. It must drive them nuts. Gnutella must have at least a dozen different clients. No one owns the protocol and most clients are open-source. The only way to ban it is to start sueing on the client side. Luckily, freenet is still improving too :-). Internet time is just passing too soon for them I guess. Next thing you know, you're irrelevant and your business model blows up in your face.

  • Why not just use Qtella? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Moritz Moeller - Her ( 3704 ) <{ten.xmg} {ta} {hmm}> on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @05:24AM (#2557628)
    GPL, for linux and QT/KDE. Has everything I need and looks prettier. Faster too.

    A new version (0.3) was released two days ago.

    I have no sympathy for all the losers on /. who whine about the spyware on their Windows machines. GO AWAY!

    Here is the URL: http://www.qtella.net/

    Description:

    Qtella is a new Gnutella client for Linux written in C++ using the Qt libraries. It should be no problem to use Qtella on any platforms where Qt with thread support (library qt-mt must exists) is installed.

    The following features are part of Qtella 0.2.1:

    multiple search
    continue interrupted downloads
    uploads
    limit number of downloads and uploads
    limit upload bandwidth
    separate unfinished downloads from finished ones
    download of several files at once
    test whether file allready exists
    identification of download server
    automatic retry if error, busy, closed
    auto connect list
    KDE integration
    save host list
    handle extended gnutella protocol
    status lines and statistics
    accecpt incoming connections
    download from firewalled hosts
    pong cache to reduce network traffic
    • I totally agree with your entire post. Mod up +1 Insightfull.
  • stick with open-source software.


    MS may have forced OEM's to preinstall windoze on your pc (clue in Dept. of Justice), but thereafter, the choice is yours.

  • Im impressed... limewhat?
  • The new face to face network involves talking to real people, is kind of scarey and unintuitive at first and yes there are some ppl that could be considered "spyware".

    However we have figured it is a simple as a two click (boom) uninstall.

    The transfer rates are fast! Get cd's from your "network of friends" and as your cd-burner can go you'll have whatever you're looking for.

    And best of all, nobody is excluded from joining unless you don't want them to! FTP and IRC protocols allow you to deny/allow whomever you wish. No banners, no ads and you (w)get whatever you deserve.

    One cavet in all of this is you will have to upgrade your wetware to better versions of commonsense.libs, intelligence.exe conversations.dll's.

    Thank you.

    Visits us at www.internet dinosaurs r us.com
  • But in this day and age of all the content providers going down fast, it is pretty evident that the people who sale the bandwidth have just got to be rolling in the cash...I am always seeing stories like "THis site cost $$ K per month in bandwidth fees to operate"...The people who sale bandwith have to be saying: "What do you mean this economy sucks -- we are soooo rich"

  • Thiefware (Score:3, Informative)

    by ThesQuid ( 86789 ) <a987@@@mac...com> on Tuesday November 13, 2001 @11:24AM (#2558324) Journal
    A great website about all this is ThiefWare [thiefware.com].
    They have comprehensive descriptions of all the companies and the spyware they install.

    I discovered this site after being called by a "representative" wanting to sell our company keywords for $30,000! My boss was psyched about it until I impressed upon him that we did not want to be associated with such scum. The bizarro thing was that this salesman didn't even work for Cydoor Networks...they seemed to be parasites of the parasites.


  • Just so ya know... I downloaded Limewire 1.8 this weekend and installed it on OS X 10.1 - no ad software, no banners, just like 1.7 only with different tabs/widgets. :-)

  • Napster makes money off distribution of copyright information. Napster gets sued and shut down. Fasttrack makes money off distribution of copyright information. Fasttrack gets sued. LimeWire makes money off distibution of copyright information. At least Gnutella isn't a sueable entity.

  • Exactly how does it benefit them by adding more strain to their bandwith (with resulting increased costs) with adverts? Will the income from the ads really offset the additional costs of the extra bandwidth requirements?

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