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In my spare time (which I have a lot of thanks to my recent lay off) I fix computers for regular users. Every now and then I come across someone’s PC that has decent virus and spyware protection on it and I let out a little sigh of relief. But for every computer I see with good protection, I see many others with little or no protection, and even worse, I see Limewire.
Limewire is a program that allows users to download music and other files and it is probably one of the most virus infected programs I’ve ever come across. The viruses aren’t in the Limewire program itself but rather the files that are downloaded from other users of the program. Limewire is what’s known as a P2P or peer to peer program. This means that people upload and share their files for other people to download. This is what makes the RIAA very angry because usually this means someone is pirating music or software.
Now I don’t condone piracy in any way. I’ve worked in the software industry and seen the sweat and tears that get put into a good product and when someone pirates it, the people that worked on it don’t get paid properly.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way there is a program that you can use to download music and files so that you can SAMPLE them. If you like what you hear then you can go out and buy the program or cd or even download the song on iTunes. Having a P2P program can be a great help when you’re in college or just looking for a specific file that you may be missing. You can find anything you want with these programs and sometimes it works out that you find something so great that you wouldn’t have found in your normal daily routine.
The program in question is Frostwire. Now I know it sounds like Limewire and I think that’s what they were going for when they names this program. Frostwire is an open source program which means it is developed by the community, which 99% of the time means the program itself doesn’t contain spyware, adware, or viruses of any kind.
The good thing about Frostwire is that it is free to use and sets up within minutes. The thing to beware of, as with any P2P program is what files you are actually downloading. Make sure you check the file type of what you’re downloading and that it matches the type you’re looking for. For example, if you are going to download a new song in mp3 format, make sure the file type is mp3 and not wma or any other type.
As I said before I DO NOT promote piracy in any way, but if you are going to download a song to hear if you like it or try a program out before you buy it, make sure you’re using a P2P program that isn’t loaded with virus infected files like Limwire.
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10 Responses to “Stop using Limewire”
- 1 Pingback on Sep 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
- 2 Pingback on Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Thanks for your review. We are indeed 100% free of spyware and viruses.
Our source code is available here via subversion:
svn co https://frostwire.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/frostwire frostwire
You can download it, compile it (Java), and hack it to your heart’s contempt.
If you come up with a fix, or enhancement, please send your patches to contact@frostwire.com
Thanks for this, I consider myself quite the geek, but when it comes to downloading I’m not really up on things. I’ve been using limewire for years and always been careful about what I dl, and have stayed relatively clean of viruses, but it just stopped searching the other day. My firewall is on, but I had added it to my exceptions and reinstalled and still nada. I just downloaded your recommendation and it works like a charm, and even helpfully offered to uninstall limewire for me ;p Thanks for the tip!
Well see now
I’ve used Limewire for years
Now, I’m technologically savvy and do my own computer repair, but
here’s teh way I look at it: If I’m stupid and get a virus from Limewire, it’s my fault.
Analogy: condoms don’t work jack shit if you stick yourself without it.
…. and that’s why i call it LAMEwire!
Nice post Doug!
Jim
Awesome heads up! I haven’t used a program like that since iMesh…and hadn’t found one I was willing to sacrifice my laptop for…know lots of fallen pc’s to Limewire because they didn’t have proper protection. I do and I still am not willing to download it.
Will be checking out Frostwire
This seems like a very biased article. blurb, rather.
I only found this blog because I searched for problems I was having with limewire, so it’s a good source of info for an alternative. Biased or not it’s still helpful, and to the point. It seems like he at least checks out what he’s talking about before ‘blurbing’, so it really doesn’t matter if it’s benefitting him and those that listen. win-win
Im so glad i have read this, because i crashed my family computer due to the viruses and such of limewire! since then my poor ipod has sat and collected dust because there is old music like Nsync and Backstreet Boys! i will deff. give this “Frost wire” a look!
Thanks!!