What are current thoughts on Shareaza as a BT client?

[spoco2]

Hi all, I only just stumbled across this forum and must say there seems to be a wealth of info here!

I have a question right off the bat. I've been using Shareaza for quite time now very happily for both video downloads via BitTorrent, and music via the other supported networks. My wife likes it due to it being only one client for handling everything, and it's really easy to use.

My question is that does anyone here have thoughts on how it actually performs these days as a BitTorrent client compared to others? To me it seems as fast as one could want, and I know that in the past it had issues, but there have been a large number of fixes and improvements over time.

As such, does anyone who's tried it and others recently have any thoughts on how it stacks up?

[RealitY]

Last I looked at this it was bottom of the list for bt clients with many issues.
Though it may have improved since then since that was some time ago...

[spoco2]

Last I looked at this it was bottom of the list for bt clients with many issues.
Though it may have improved since then since that was some time ago...

That's really the point of my question I guess. I know it has been bad in the past (although I've never had issue with how fast things come down), but I was more wondering from those in the know, as to whether it's regarded as good these days...

[RealitY]

The issue then was it being viewed as a leech client if I recall corectly. When testing it the ul was slow and the client would dissconect when the torrent was done and share it on the G2 network. Again this was some time ago. Would think by now theyve changed those drawbacks...

[spoco2]

The issue then was it being viewed as a leech client if I recall corectly. When testing it the ul was slow and the client would dissconect when the torrent was done and share it on the G2 network. Again this was some time ago. Would think by now theyve changed those drawbacks...

Very true, that's what it did do. Now it actually does say 'seeding' once you finish a download (although it also still shares on the G2 network too).

I'm asking as I want to write up the best review I can for a site a few of us are trying to put together to ward people off the horrendous file sharing scam sites that are out there. As part of said site, I'm doing reviews of my favourite p2p clients, and Shareaza happens to be my current favourite, so I was trying to ensure I'm not leading people down a bad path by using it.

The site is http://www.mp3read.com if you're interested, still very much in the 'building' stages. But we hope it can become a site people can be pointed towards as a way of letting them know about all the horrible scams there are out there... I mean there are even sites that pretend to be sites reviewing the 'good' file sharing sites that end up pointing you to some of the worst... it's just mind numbingly horrible.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts on Shareaza, it would seem it's having trouble shaking off some of the bad feelings of old.

[General2k]

I tried it a while back, and it was nothing but a memory pig. Had trouble connecting to trackers, and very slow speeds when it finally did connect.
I switched over to uTorrent and I must say that either uTorrent or Azureus are the way to go.

[teddytora]

Don't care for Shareaza, although imho the best torrent client seems to depend on how much b/w you have & how you want to manage it. I could never get Azureus configured to perform as I wanted wheras Utorrent works just fine.

[spoco2]

I tried it a while back, and it was nothing but a memory pig. Had trouble connecting to trackers, and very slow speeds when it finally did connect.
I switched over to uTorrent and I must say that either uTorrent or Azureus are the way to go.

Yeah, again, it would seem to be a 'a while back it was crud, haven't tried it since' kinda thing... maybe I need to check the Shareaza forums again, although they tend to be biased towards it for some strange reason

Don't care for Shareaza, although imho the best torrent client seems to depend on how much b/w you have & how you want to manage it. I could never get Azureus configured to perform as I wanted wheras Utorrent works just fine.

Yeah, I've never had much issue with speed of downloads, on a good wicket with cable internet here, so bandwidth limits not a problem...

[geen]

I tried it a while back, and it was nothing but a memory pig. Had trouble connecting to trackers, and very slow speeds when it finally did connect.
I switched over to uTorrent and I must say that either uTorrent or Azureus are the way to go.

Shareaza isnt developed for people who mostly download torrents. Its there for people who dont want much trouble with different clients and should be described as kazaa users.
Its a product with a lot of features but some of them are not more then average. Its the old "quality over quantity" story, do you want a lot of features(quantity) or can you live with being limited to torrents but have a better(quality) client.

[TheFoX]

The one major issue that is overlooked by those using ShareAZA is that the torrent you download into the client will then appear in your Shared Folder (if enabled, which it is in most cases).

There are two major issues with having the torrent in your Shared Folder. Firstly, that torrent will probably have your passkey embedded into it, meaning that others can leach off your account. Secondly, having a torrent in the Shared Folder means that it can be selected as part of a search (especially since torrent names usually reflect the Scene name of the original material used for the RAR).

Combine these two, and you have a situation where someone can actively search your Shared Folder, then download the torrent data from peers, posing as you. This is the equivalent of torrent ID Fraud (someone stealing your identity to take data from YOUR peers).

Many communities ban ShareAZA because of this issue, and one community actually changes the name of the torrent file to random characters so that the release name is not the same as the torrent name.

I would also point out that a dedicated BT client will perform much more admirably than a hybrid client, since the dedicated one has been optimised for that specific filesharing method.

Finally, it is uncool to brag you use ShareAZA. People will look down at you, thinking that you are possibly a village idiot. They may think your a charity case, or a few slices short of a loaf. Discard this image immediately. There are a wealth of excellent clients available, some of which will enhance your image (and possibly your sex life as well).