Overview

Limewire is a very popular programme for sharing files, and is used by 50 million people every month. Using the BitTorrent protocol and Gnutella network, Limewire search and download speeds are unsurpassed, and security is state-of-the-art. Users are able to use Limewire to share videos, music and files with others, and search for files on other people’s computers as well as their own, across a peer-to-peer network.

Peer-to-peer

Peer-to-peer (P2P) refers to the fact that Limewire transfers files directly between users’ hard drives rather than using a centralised server to store them in, as Napster used to do. In the case of Limewire, shared files are technically being transferred rather than downloaded.

Flexibility

As Limewire is written in the cross-platform Java programming language, any type of operating system will support it, including Windows, Macintosh, Linux and others. Any type of file is able to be transferred, from MP3 for music and AVI/MPEG for video to JPG for photos.

Popularity

There are a number of reasons for Limewire’s huge popularity with users wanting to share pictures, videos, music and other data across the internet. These include its advanced search criteria on artists, genres and titles. Customisable searches are always a hit with online surfers who want quick and accurate results.

File transfer speeds are greatly increased by ‘swarming’ from a network of computers rather than relying on a central server. Limewire is also integrated with iTunes for Mac and Windows users, and includes integrated chat capabilities.

Limewire supports the most up-to-date industry standard formats for files and has a range of features not commonly found on other file-sharing programmes, such as viewing and navigational controls for sifting through data. Last but by no means least, Limewire is completely free to download and run.

Legality

The popularity of Limewire is evidenced by the fact that over a third of the world’s computers have it installed. It is, contrary to some opinions, completely legal software to use for ‘downloading’ or transferring free music and videos amongst other things. It can also be used for uploading the same to the site from your own computer, and it is not necessary to have a web browser such as IE or Firefox open at the time of the transfer.

Advanced Searches

To use Limewire effectively, all the search box criteria should be filled in. This avoids getting anything up to 1000 matches on the standard search request. The spelling should also be double-checked, and when multiple results come back choose the one with the smallest file size for easier downloading.

Summary

There are a number of file sharing programmes to choose from but the advantages of Limewire in terms of the range of tools it offers, its speed and ease of use and its unbeatable search facilities that return precise results in seconds, have made it the file-sharing programme of choice for a majority of users. Recent lawsuits have seen enthusiastic internet file-sharers rise in its defence and added to the demonization of the traditional music industry, which is often characterised as being monolithic, grasping and self-serving.