LimeWire Leads P2P Pack on Download.com

[SlyckTom]

Image first starting off in the P2P world and trying to choose from the following lineup: iMesh, Morpheus, BearShare, WarezP2P, eDonkey, etc. While the "hardcore" file-sharing crowd typically stays far, far away from these clients, the uninformed mainstream crowd is faced with dozens of choices - many times inadvertently downloading the likes of Kazaa or Grokster. While the over stocked P2P market can prove confusing for new comers, there are exceptions to the mainstream curse, such as the benign Ares Galaxy - or LimeWire.

LimeWire is a spyare and adware free Gnutella application that carefully balances its appeal to the mainstream crowd while also maintaining the respect of veteran file-traders. Even if an individual does not use the program, there really is little to dislike about it. There is no evil advertising, no spyware, no adware, no pop-ups and LimeWire's contribution to the Gnutella network is admirable.

These attributes have helped LimeWire become a favorite amongst the mainstream P2P crowd. Tired of the spyware, adware and corrupt-file nature of FastTrack (Kazaa, Grokster), Gnutella has witnessed its population soar to nearly 1.5 million simultaneous users. Spearheaded by LimeWire, this application is the most downloaded P2P client on Download.com for the week ending on January 30th. In fact, it is the second most downloaded piece of software on Download.com, trailing behind the rightly placed Ad-Aware Personal Edition.

"Users don’t want adware or spyware sneaked in with a file-sharing program," said Greg Bildson, Lime Wire COO. "They want a great file-sharing program without the hassle of bundled software. LimeWire gives users just that: LimeWire’s pure file-sharing technology with no spyware and no adware, and we’ve seen our user base grow steadily because of it.”

LimeWire was downloaded over 800,000 times during the last week of January. The only P2P application that came close during that time period was BearShare with 420,000 downloads. Coming in third place was iMesh multinetwork beta with 270,000 downloads. Below is the press release from LimeWire:

<center><b>Lime Wire Takes Over the Number Two Spot on Download.com, Moving Ahead of Spybot</b></center>

New York City (February 4, 2005) Lime Wire LLC announces that LimeWire 4.2 was the most downloaded file-sharing program for the week ending January 30th, with 807,611 downloads on Download.com. This move places LimeWire, an adware- and spyware-free P2P client, ahead of Spybot, an anti-spyware program. LimeWire has remained one of the most downloaded file-sharing programs on Download.com for over six months, with other P2P clients rarely matching its popularity. LimeWire has been downloaded by over 35,721,705 Windows users, and has reigned as the most popular download of all Mac software for many months.

No other file-sharing program has come close to the same number of downloads for this time period, with rival Morpheus downloaded 187,459 times, iMesh 274,123 times, and BearShare 420,608 times for the same week. During this time the Gnutella network (which includes LimeWire, iMesh, Morpheus and BearShare) peaked with 1.4 million concurrent users.

"Users don’t want adware or spyware sneaked in with a file-sharing program," said Greg Bildson, Lime Wire COO. "They want a great file-sharing program without the hassle of bundled software. LimeWire gives users just that: LimeWire’s pure file-sharing technology with no spyware and no adware, and we’ve seen our user base grow steadily because of it.”

For more information on Lime Wire or to download LimeWire 4.2, please visit the Lime Wire website at http://www.limewire.com

[SlyckChuck]

Good article Tom. The only thing I do not like about most Gnutella applications is the need for it to use sun java. It kinda screws up anything else I would run in java based mode. Once they fix that part I will bite on it again.

[Psycho Ced]

No kidding. Limewire is an exellent G1 client. I think that it is because of LimeWire that Gnutella has picked up so much. I have no doubt that Gnutella will surpass FastTrack with LimeWire at the Helm. Go LimeWire.

Keep in mind that emule and kazaa can be downloaded elsewhere.

[Nessmaster]

Keep in mind that emule and kazaa can be downloaded elsewhere.

Hey hey hey, is it me or did emule/ed2k turn evil all of a sudden? What do you have against emule eh? It connects to a larger network (ed2k as well as KAD) with very few fake files and such. Emule is open source compleatly crapware free. You get much better results with emule than you get with limwire. There are a ton of hash sites. So tell me, when did emule turn evil like kazaa?

[Drake]

So tell me, when did emule turn evil like kazaa?

I think he just meant that since they can be downloaded elsewhere, their true download stats are probably much higher than Limewire's.

[Psycho Ced]

Keep in mind that emule and kazaa can be downloaded elsewhere.

Hey hey hey, is it me or did emule/ed2k turn evil all of a sudden? What do you have against emule eh? It connects to a larger network (ed2k as well as KAD) with very few fake files and such. Emule is open source compleatly crapware free. You get much better results with emule than you get with limwire. There are a ton of hash sites. So tell me, when did emule turn evil like kazaa?

Allow me to re-express myself!

Keep in mind that __ emule * * __ and __ kazaa __ can be downloaded elsewhere.

....

[steelhybrid]

Its really great to see an open source application(limewire is open source in case you didn't know) gain such high popularity, on download.com nonetheless! Limewire is a great client that connects to a great network. If you are calling limewires dependance on java a weakness here are the two things you should know/do:

- Limewire runs A LOT better on java 1.5

- Limewire is constantly improving in this respect, in almost every release you will find entries in the changelog such as "Improved startup time" etc.

Long live Limewire! Let us hope that they don't become corrupted with all the popularity they've gained.

[Nessmaster]

Keep in mind that emule and kazaa can be downloaded elsewhere.

Hey hey hey, is it me or did emule/ed2k turn evil all of a sudden? What do you have against emule eh? It connects to a larger network (ed2k as well as KAD) with very few fake files and such. Emule is open source compleatly crapware free. You get much better results with emule than you get with limwire. There are a ton of hash sites. So tell me, when did emule turn evil like kazaa?

Allow me to re-express myself!

Keep in mind that __ emule * * __ and __ kazaa __ can be downloaded elsewhere.

....

Allow me to appologies:

Soryy

[Psycho Ced]

No problem . I'm just glade I was able to respond before
Emule fanatics & Limewire fanatics showed up.
But back on topic; I think Limewire is one of the things that Gnutella needed all along. I just hope that they can make the network more hospitable to larger files. If I was a betting man; I would bet that LimeWire would definitely be the program to eventually achieve this.

[gungo]

I haven't followed Limewire for years, so forgive me if this sounds stupid...

When did Limewire become spyware-free?

[Psycho Ced]

The free version of LimeWire prior to v4.0.0 had Adware

[zab]

I just hope that they can make the network more hospitable to larger files. If I was a betting man; I would bet that LimeWire would definitely be the program to eventually achieve this.

I'm taking you on my next trip to Vegas

[666]

For Gnutella on steroids use KCeasy.

Swarms from Gnutella and Ares.

And no adware. 100% Open Source.

[kevogod]

Why not the mention the fact that eMule and Azureus both get over 900,000 downloads from Sourceforge.net each week?

[Trev0r269]

666,
heh KCeasy doesn't deal with gnutella as well as LimeWire. The gnutella plug-in for KCeasy is fairly old now, and although it does swarm with Ares some many people recommend just using Ares and openFT on KCeasy. But hey KC is still a clean way to ge on gnutella, I'm all for it. I'm more and more people discovering KCeasy is adding to people on gnutella.

[Vampmon]

Well, this is good news for LimeWire and Gnutella.
As for overtaking SpyBot, thing is SpyBot' homepage doesn't link to Download.com, LimeWire's does.

Why not the mention the fact that eMule and Azureus both get over 900,000 downloads from Sourceforge.net each week?

Why dont we also mention the fact that KaZaa gets over 1,000,000 downloads every week too...

[Psycho Ced]

I just hope that they can make the network more hospitable to larger files. If I was a betting man; I would bet that LimeWire would definitely be the program to eventually achieve this.

I'm taking you on my next trip to Vegas

done..though I'd probably spend most of my time chasing around the show-girls...

Why not the mention the fact that eMule and Azureus both get over 900,000 downloads from Sourceforge.net each week?

Good point, maybe it will be in his next article talking about downloads from Sourceforge.net

Well, this is good news for LimeWire and Gnutella.
As for overtaking SpyBot, thing is SpyBot' homepage doesn't link to Download.com, LimeWire's does.

Why dont we also mention the fact that KaZaa gets over 1,000,000 downloads every week too...

A) no one cares
B) no one believes them

KaZaA is tracking their own states

[Vampmon]

A) no one cares
B) no one believes them

KaZaA is tracking their own states

Well, if it is the #1 P2P download on the net, i think it should atleast have something said about it, but i dont care.

In a way i do believe those stats, maybe they lie a tiny bit maybe adding 100,000 or so downloads but im sure its something between 800,000 and 1,000,000.

[JiMiThInG]

As tom pointed out there really isn't anything about limewire to make one not at least respect it. I personally don't like anything as complex as a file sharing client using java. Also I just have not found a compelling reason to use the Gnutella network. It is good to see a program thats adware/spyware free being used by the download.com masses though.

[gregorio]

sourceforge download stats are not updated at the moment, but eMule & Azureus both should still have around 900k downloads a week.

[pd2]

"iMesh, Morpheus, BearShare, WarezP2P, eDonkey, etc. While the "hardcore" file-sharing crowd typically stays far, far away from these clients"

why should I stay far, far away from edonkey ? I load a lot of older movies, and so I prefer eDonkey2000&Overnet Network and not Bittorrent. And I like eDonkey2000 and its Plugins more as eMule.

[SlyckTom]

Why not the mention the fact that eMule and Azureus both get over 900,000 downloads from Sourceforge.net each week?

Actually Kevo, if you do a quick search, you will see I have covered something very similar to this before:

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=556

[webe3]

I am suprised that no one has mentioned BIT TORRENT of all things.....it has way more users than limewire or edonkey! It is also spyware free if you don't count the new "exeem" client.

[kevogod]

Why not the mention the fact that eMule and Azureus both get over 900,000 downloads from Sourceforge.net each week?

Actually Kevo, if you do a quick search, you will see I have covered something very similar to this before:

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=556

While you may have covered Open Source programs in the past, that is just that, the past. This is now.

[Psycho Ced]

Slyck; you just can't win!