January 20, 2009 by sharky
Tech-savvy torrenters snicker at anyone who continues to use LimeWire and similar-style P2P applications. Ever tried to convert your LimeWire-Luvin’ friend into joining the world of torrents? Not an easy task in most situations - you either get it, or you don’t. Having said that, for P2P’ers who can’t wrap their head around seeds, peers, swarms, ratios, H&Rs and other torrent-techie jargon, making the switch from version 4.18 to the all-new & drastically improved LimeWire 5 offers some substantial benefits over its predecessors. Take for instance, automatic file & folder sharing - this is disabled by default, so you won’t end up like Jammie Thomas.
New Features in LimeWire 5
Aside from receiving a makeover to bring it up to 2009, LimeWire 5 has added an assortment of new features. Viruses and bad files in the search results are a thing of the past; users can share files privately through Gmail, Jabber and Live Journal; automatic file/folder sharing has been disabled by default; and there’s a ‘What’s New‘ search feature to find the latest additions to the network - just to name a few. True to form, it’s still open source software.
While still currently being developed, LimeWire 5.0.7 beta can be downloaded from here:
http://www.limewire.com/download/betaversion.php
Automatic File/Folder Sharing = OFF
Folder Sharing with the P2P network (Gnutella) is turned OFF by default, as is the ability to share and search for applications. Heaven forbid you should ever be using LimeWire to search for *.EXE files, anyways. If you must, these settings can always be changed in Tools > Options… > Security (Tab) > Unsafe Categories > Configure. This video shows how to share files with the P2P network.
‘What’s New’ Search
Sharing With Friends
Another key improvement to LimeWire 5 is a feature that lets users sign into your Gmail, Jabber, or LiveJournal, and share files privately with members of your buddy list. They’ve taken this a step further whereby users can share files on-the-fly with specific members. There’s also collection sharing, which lets you share a category of files (audio, images, or video) with a friend. You’ll share with that friend not only the current files you have in that category, but all future files you download from the P2P Network or with other friends. Check out these screencasts (videos) that explain LimeWire usage and friends.
Safe Searching - LimeWire’s Approach to Virus Filtering
Something we’ve all noticed about the old LimeWire is the alarming frequency of bad results in a search query. LimeWire 5 has now taken care of this, and only shows relevant results. Viruses are virtually nonexistent, as are those bogus tiny files that plagued just about any search. LimeWire also safeguards against a variety of dangerous file extensions, including potentially hazardous scripts, web links and Windows Media Video files: .vbs, .asf, .asx, .wmv, .htm, and .html.
The new LimeWire doesn’t completely solve all of the problems with bad files on the network, but it is somewhat successful to marginalize the junk that may make it through to the results. Queries takes a little longer to complete, and there are fewer overall results. As a test, a search for Dark Knight still takes some skill from users to properly "find" a good, working ‘proper’ version - but it does exist in our test search (matching up with a public aXXo release). This is where a public torrent tracker can come in handy (file sizes, release/P2P groups), as well as the in-program Bitzi file lookup. However; there were some suspect results. Below, the fourth-most relevant search result would appear to be valid (due to the number of users sharing it) but closer scrutiny through a Bitzi hashcheck reveals that the file is actually "911 - Loose Change", not Dark Knight. Hey, at least LimeWire integrates this fake-finding feature.
Other Features:
Bitzi Searching: Files can be cross-referenced with Bitzi, to check for validity and authenticity. Click on the " i " next to a search result, then click "More file info".
Browse Other Files: Click "P2P Users" next to a file, and browse all other files from a selected user. The user (name) will also be shown in the left sidebar, underdeath ‘On LimeWire‘.
Music Bitrates: While we’d prefer it if the music bitrates were displayed directly on the search results (or in a separate column), bitrates can still be viewed before a file is downloaded. Right-click a file and select "View File Info…" (or click the " i " when viewing in List-View mode), this will show additional file specs.
Conclusion: All in all, the new LimeWire does offer a decent array of improvements over previous versions. Notwithstanding, there’s absolutely nothing that any new LimeWire can do against it’s true Achilles heel, and that’s Gnutella. A P2P program can only ever be as good as the network it’s on. Users might be a lot safer against viruses now, but there continues to be fake & misleading files that don’t match the name; and poorly-ripped MP3’s turn up around every corner, just like before. But at least you won’t have to worry about ratios, H&Rs and seeding.
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