Shareaza vs ShareazaPlus - Which One is Best?

March 27, 2008 by sharky

Everyone is familiar with Shareaza for P2P filesharing. But there’s a neat little spinoff called ShareazaPlus that’s recently been released. ShareazaPlus is a mod version of Shareaza, and includes enhancements to significantly speed up downloads, file searches and networking performance under WinXP.

New Features

ShareazaPlus has added a few features to its original predecessor, Shareaza. New features include:

Search by URI:

Unheard of in the original Shareaza, ShareazaPlus allows for searching from a variety of known URNs / URIs, including SHA1, Tiger Tree, MD5, BitTorrent (BTiT), and eD2k. This is particularly handy if you already know (or have) a magnet link, but can’t find any sources.

Another way for this to be applied is through hashes for known files, (such as the ones found at Bitzi.com).

Manual Connect Mode

Users can connect manually to known neighbours or eDonkey servers by using the Manual Connect Mode feature.

G1 & eD2k Connections

By default, both Shareaza and ShareazaPlus won’t automatically connect to the Gnutella (1) network or eDonkey (just Gnutella 2 - or “G2″). In ShareazaPlus, you’ll need to go into the settings to change this. Go to TOOLS > ShareazaPlus Settings… and select the Networks tab (to the left). At the bottom where it says “Orginal Gnutella Network”, select either “Enabled by Default” or “AlwaysEnabled” from the options in the dropdown box. Click APPLY to save the new settings. Repeat these steps for the “eDonkey Network” above it.

Search Comparisons

The true comparisons are exemplified in the searching. We set up both P2P clients in the exact same manner, and conducted identical searches. Results were inconclusive. Depending on the search keyword used, they both outdid each other in different search scenarios. Also, search ’success’ is indicative of the number of connected hubs/leaves, which varied greatly between clients during different times, although Shareaza seemed to have an edge:

So, which one is the better Shareaza? For now, it’s probably best to stick with the tried-and-true original Shareaza. ShareazaPlus is still in ‘Alpha’ mode, but includes some newer features - look for it to develop a fanbase down the road.

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