Shareaza

Shareaza

Original author(s)	Michael Stokes
Developer(s)	Shareaza Development Team @ Shareaza.SourceForge.Net
Initial release	2000
Stable release	2.6.0.0 (June 3, 2012; 9 months ago (2012-06-03)[1]) [±] [±]
Preview release	2.6.0.1 r9229 (October 22, 2012 (2012-10-22)[2]) [±] [±]
Written in	C++ with MFC and Boost
Operating system	Microsoft Windows (Win9x till v.2.3.1.0) Win2000, NT, XP, Vista, Windows7
Size	6.35 MB (installer)
Available in	30 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish and Catalan
Type	Peer-to-peer file sharing
License	Free software (GPLv2+)
Website	shareaza.sf.net

Shareaza is a peer-to-peer file sharing client running under Microsoft Windows which supports the gnutella, Gnutella2 (G2), eDonkey, BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP and HTTPS network protocols and handles magnet links,^[3] ed2k links, and the now deprecated gnutella and Piolet links.^[4] It is available in 30 languages.

Shareaza was developed by Michael Stokes^[5] until June 1, 2004,^[5] and is now maintained by a group of volunteers. On June 1, 2004, Shareaza 2.0 was released, along with the source code, under the GNU General Public License (GPL), making it free software. As of October 2010^[update] Shareaza ranked 12th on the SourceForge all-time download statistics.^[6] Version, 2.6.0.0 was released on 3 June 2012.

Features

Multi-network

Shareaza can connect to gnutella, G2, eDonkey and BitTorrent. Shareaza hashes its files for all networks, and then distributes those hash values on G2. This allows Shareaza to download one file from several networks at once.^[7] When another Shareaza client connected to G2 finds such a file, it is given the hash values for all networks and can search on the other networks with their respective hash values, which increases the number of sources and the download speed of the file. Shareaza also uses its G2 network to find more sources for torrents.

Security filter

The Shareaza client has some basic content filters including a forced child and optional adult pornography filter, and some other optional filters such as a filter for files encumbered with Digital rights management (DRM). Shareaza's security filters can also be extended with user-defined keywords and/or IP addresses. Latest versions of Shareaza allow for the use of regular expressions and filtering by hash. These filters increase the chances of getting the files the user wants and decrease the chance of getting malicious or fake files. The file format used for the filters is an extendable XML schema. The filters are editable inside Shareaza, and can be exported from the application to be shared with others.

Plugins

Shareaza running in windowed mode with several activated skins. On the picture can be seen a search window, a bandwidth graph, the upload queue window (upper-right corner) and the neighbours window (center), showing 4 gnutella, 3 Gnutella2 and an eD2k server connection.

Shareaza implements a framework for additional plugins. The Shareaza installer ships several plugins. Most of them are used to read and strip off built in metadata from the files being hashed and convert it to an external XML based format, or to decode multimedia files for making a preview for other G2 clients. Some others serve the need of a media player inside Shareaza, and enhancements of that media player. Third party plugins can also be used, for example, Sharemonkey, which will add a link inside Shareaza when downloading or searching copyrighted material from where it can be legally downloaded.

Skins

The client can have almost all parts of the GUI skinned. This includes bars, icons, as well as backgrounds and buttons. In that way, Shareaza can be completely changed with colors, images, new buttons, etc. A basic list of skins is contained in the Shareaza installer package. Other skins can be downloaded in the community forums or found via a search for .sks (Shareaza skin files) in the G2 network. The skins are zip archives, renamed with the extension .sks, containing icons and images, as well as an XML file which binds the images and colors with the GUI.^[8]

This feature is also used for localization. The language files are XML files, like the normal skins, but not zipped. The XML file contains the translations for a certain part of the program. This enables languages to be easily changed, updated and tested without compiling an entire binary.

Modes

Shareaza contains 3 user modes. The first one is for normal users. This mode is the default mode and provides a clean, trimmed GUI. Users will not be able to heavily change the settings in this mode, but will be able to make use of the most essential functions, like searching and downloading. The second mode is for power users. It provides more access to network and advanced settings, but can also break your connection to the networks. The third mode is the windowed mode. In this mode, users can see different tabs (windows) simultaneously, providing a lot of control about the things happening. This mode also makes it possible to personalize the look of the client to perfectly fit the needs of the respective user.

IRC

Shareaza contains a built-in IRC (chat) client which allows users to communicate with each other. There are channels in several languages for support and help. These channels are located on the P2PChat servers and can also by joined by any normal IRC client or via a Java addon on the Shareaza homapage.

History

Logo of Shareaza version 1

In mid-2002 Stokes released the first version of a gnutella client he had written and dubbed "Shareaza". It was from the beginning a client with the aim of having features other gnutella clients did not have.^{[citation needed]} Over the next two years Stokes coded in support for the eDonkey 2000 network, BitTorrent and a rewritten gnutella-based protocol which he named Gnutella2.

On June 1, 2004 Stokes released the Shareaza source code under version 2 of the GNU General Public License (which coincided with the release of Shareaza version 2.0). Shareaza joined LimeWire, Gnucleus, and others as an open source client on the gnutella network.

Since the beginning Shareaza was advertised as "completely free. No ads, no spyware, no guilting you to upgrade to a commercial version", stating that the developers "[couldn't] stand that kind of crap."^[9] It has remained as such in each subsequent release.

From the first version Shareaza has supported swarming, metadata, library management, and automatic file hashing.^[9]

Domain takeover

On 19 December 2007 the project's domain name, shareaza.com, was redirected to a site claiming to be "The Official Home of Shareaza", promoting the download of a client known as Shareaza V4 (which had become V6 in October 2009, V7 in August 2010, and V8 in November 2011^[update]) unrelated to releases by the Shareaza development team,^[10] an iMesh clone with only small graphical modifications, and using Shareaza v1 logo (see the picture above). The domain owner Jon Nilson was forced to sell it as a part of a settlement with him and La Societe Des Producteurs De Phonogrammes En France.^[11] This client is a network interface for a centralised music shop by Discordia Ltd., and does not connect to any open P2P network such as gnutella, G2, eDonkey or BitTorrent. Content is limited to the DRM-protected music that can be bought in Discordia's online music store; Discordia is a company based in Cyprus, closely related to the RIAA and unrelated to the Shareaza development team. In response the Shareaza development team moved their website to SourceForge.net.

Versions prior to 2.3.1.0 of the original Shareaza connected to www.shareaza.com to check for software updates. From 1 January 2008 the new owner of the domain shareaza.com, Discordia Ltd. used this update check mechanism to suggest to users that ShareazaV4 (and later ShareazaV5, V6, and V7) was an update to the original Shareaza client. Since version 2.3.1.0,^[12] released on 3 January 2008, the original Shareaza has linked to the Shareaza pages at sourceforge.net.

Yahoo!, which uses SiteAdvisor to filter their search results,^[13] no longer lists domain shareaza.com due to it being listed by SiteAdvisor as a security risk.^[14] Other website reputation rating services, such as Web of trust, also rate Shareaza.com as dangerous.^[15]

Trademark registration by iMesh

On January 10, 2008, the new owners of Shareaza.com, Discordia Ltd (iMesh Inc.), filed for trademark registration of the Shareaza name in an attempt to stop the original developers from using the name, claiming that the first-ever use was on December 17, 2007.^[16] The Shareaza Development Team have obtained legal representation to challenge the registration and a legal defense fund has been set up.^[17] The development team appointed William Erwin to handle the donations who was hired by iMesh to sabotage the defense. The donations were withheld from the Free Software Foundation and the trademark was awarded to iMesh after the development team had given up defending the trademark.^[18]

Version history

v2.3.1.0
Version 2.3.1.0 is the last stable version of Shareaza that supports Windows 9x.^[19][20] It followed 2 days after the new owners of the project domain (see the shareaza.com domain takeover) exploited the updating mechanism to emit a false update message to trick users into installing their fake ShareazaV4 client. v2.3.1.0 is most notable for containing a fix for this security problem.

v2.4.0.0
Version 2.4.0.0 of Shareaza was released on October 1, 2008, with many bug fixes and major changes to provide better stability of the client. It is also the first stable release to include IRC support. Furthermore, major changes to the torrent handling mechanism have been made and Windows 98/Me support has been discontinued^[20] (the last version working on Windows 9x is 2.3.1.0).^[19]

When v2.4 was released the roadmap for the next version (2.4.1.0, a v2.5 release candidate) was set for release around October 1, 2009, to be followed by 2.5.0.0 a month later.^[21]

v2.5.x.0
Version 2.5.0.0 of Shareaza was released on October 31, 2009. It is significantly more stable and less resource-consuming than earlier versions. Also, it brings further improvements on the BitTorrent support, such as selective downloading of files contained in batch torrents and download prioritization. There have also been updates to the gnutella and eD2k implementation, such as extended support for GGEP, large files and chat. The IRC implementation of v2.4.0.0 has been worked over and is now free of the bugs that made it partially unusable in the previous version. Also, download manager capabilities have been extended, Internet Explorer integration has been added and BugTrap has been included to speed up and simplify reporting crashes.

Version 2.5.1.0 of Shareaza was released on December 1, 2009. It was significantly more stable than its predecessor and more functional due to fixed bugs reported on 2.5.0.0. Improved usability and compatibility of BitTorrent according to most popular service suggestions. It made use of and required the SSE instruction set, and thus required at least an Pentium-III or an Athlon-XP processor.

Version 2.5.2.0 of Shareaza was released on February 6, 2010. It brought further improvements on stability. This and later versions were available optionally either as an SSE or non-SSE build to allow the use of older processors, unlike the SSE-only version 2.5.1.0. For this and later releases the SSE-optimized build uses SSE2 and requires a Pentium 4 or later, or AMD Athlon 64 or later.

Shareaza v2.5.3.0, released on June 13, 2010, adds internal changes and optimizations; the only significant new feature is a new scheduler that allows full control over what the application does at a given time while running unattended.

Shareaza v2.5.4.0, released on February 12, 2011, improves the UPnP support and adds limited DC++ support. Also, it features μTorrent compatible peer exchange, as well as tracker exchange for BitTorrent. Also, it fixes remaining IRC chat bugs as well as a lot of rare crashes.^[22]

Shareaza v2.5.5.0, released on May 29, 2011, features further improvements to the UPnP support, as well as DC++ and gnutella updates, enhanced anti-spam protection during searches and multi-file download merging.

V2.6.x.x

V2.6.0.0 was released on 3 June 2012.

Shareaza and Linux

Shareaza can be run under Linux using the Wine compatibility layer. Although the media player does not work, uploading and downloading work flawlessly.^[23]

Currently, there are two software projects that focus on porting Shareaza's functionality to operating systems other than Windows. Sharelin is a Gnutalla2 client for Linux which started development in 2008. It is not based on Shareaza and will not have support for P2P networks other than Gnutella2, however it is linked to the Shareaza project as it is being developed as a SourceForge project by one of Shareaza's code contributors. The latest version as of March 2012^[update] was 0.2.6, released on 11 December 2011.

The other project, named Quazaa, focuses on developing a cross-platform multi-network client similar to Shareaza. It is based on the Qt framework and will support connectivity to the Gnutella2, Ares and eDonkey2000 networks, and will be able to download from HTTP, FTP, and BitTorrent sources. Quazaa was in the early stages of development in 2010. Debug versions are available,^[24] but no release version as of March 2012^[update].

Awards and reviews

• In November 2008, Shareaza was featured on SourceForge as Project of the Month.^[25]

• In December 2009 Shareaza was ranked number 5 in SourceForge.Net's "What's Hot for Windows?" file sharing software ranking with 78% "recommended" (while number 1 was 81% "recommended"). As of 24 August 2010 (2010-08-24)^[update] it was in the same position. The ranking is based on user recommendations and opinions and downloads of software from project site.^[26]
• Windows 7 Software Compatibility Testing - Shareaza. Reviews by Lucas Artigas

See also

Free software portal

• Sharelin
• Comparison of file sharing applications
• Comparison of download managers

References

External links

• Project homepage on SourceForge.net
• Project forums on SourceForge.net
• Shareaza Links to Shareaza project and related or interesting pages in Shareaza wiki
• ShareazaSource, Shareaza-related security and scam awareness information