Bearshare - Bearshare is another file-sharing program that uses the Gnutella network to connect to. Just by saying this, there's already a few things I can say. Firstly, the Gnutella network is made up of thousands of different servers integrated into the service. This means that Bearshare has to blindly connect to different IPs, hoping for a connection. This takes quite long and makes the service slow. But then again, this can be said about all programs using the Gnutella network - and there are a lot. So I can't really put this against them.

There are, however, a few things I can put against Bearshare. Firstly, it doesn't have any internal players, which is always disappointing coz its tiring having to pull out Winamp or video players to play a file. But, once again, this Bearshare can't really be penalised for this, as you use these programs to GET files, not to play them. Still...
The real downfall for this program is the poor searching facility (see screenshot). You see, when you are searching the Gnutella network, you really need options to search separately for MP3s, or pictures or videos etc., but Bearshare doesn't give you this option. Also, when searching for files, the results take it a bit of time to display, but when they do, they really do come at you. The general searching window just doesn't feel right to me. It looks kinda messy when the results are shown, and you can only filter out results by the minimum speed of the other users you want to download off, and the maximum size of files. Which kinda sucks.

The actual interface as a whole is pretty easy to get to grips with (see 2nd screenshot). You'll be able to easily navigate around the program there are tabs at the top that display "Hosts", "Downloads", "Uploads", "Search" etc. The fact that it uses a very much likable interface to a normal Windows window, you should feel good to use this program easily.

So, onto the downloads. Downloading a file from Bearshare, as can be said for any Gnutella portal, is reasonable fast and reliable. You'll also be pleased to know that you can resume broken downloads too. Of course though, the fact that this is a Gnutella portal itself, if you search for something pretty vaguely, the results that come up will be pretty pointless to your request as many people just chuck anything in their shared folders, which, once again, slows down the service a little.

Also, one important note about this program that you should be aware of. And I think this can also be related to any Gnutella portal (is portal the right word I'm using? :). There are words going around they Bearshare does contain spyware. If you don't know what spyware is, its basically a piece of software that monitors what you do when you are on the net. So if you're concerned about this (and you shouldn't really be), please research on this matter before downloading and installing this program.

SUMMARY: On the whole then, Bearshare is a pretty easy program to get to grips with and use. However, there are better Gnutella portals out there, such as Gnotella, that have better search facilities, and just on the whole function a lot better. So, in my opinion, a nice program, but there are a lot better out there.

Pros : Large user base - Very user friendly - Reasonably fast downloads - Resumable downloads.

Cons : Poor search facility - slow connection to server - possibly contains spyware.

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