Shareaza is a
peer-to-peer file sharing client running under
Microsoft Windows which supports the
Gnutella,
Gnutella2,
eDonkey Network,
BitTorrent,
FTP and
HTTP network protocols and handles
magnet links,
ed2k links,
Piolet links, and the now deprecated Gnutella links.
It is available in 30 languages.
Shareaza was developed by Michael Stokes
until
June 1,
2004, and is now maintained by a group of volunteers. On
1 June 2004, Shareaza 2.0 was released, along with the source code, under the
GNU General Public License (GPL), making it
free software. The latest version, released on
October 1 2008, is 2.4.0.0. The next version (2.4.1.0), a v2.5
release candidate, was said to be planned for release around
October 1st,
2009, followed by 2.5.0.0 a month later.
Features
Multi-network
Shareaza can connect to
Gnutella,
Gnutella2,
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. 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, or with any external
text editor, 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 (uper-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
Gnutella2 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.
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 and can also by joined by any normal IRC client or via a
Java addon on the Shareaza homapage.
History
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. 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). It was the third big filesharing application (after
LimeWire and
Gnucleus) to become truly open software on the
Gnutella network and moved Gnutella clients towards open source development.
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."
It has remained as such in each subsequent release.
From the first version Shareaza has supported
swarming,
metadata, library management, and automatic
file hashing.
Domain takeover
On
19 December 2007 the project's
domain name, shareaza.com, was
redirected to an unrelated site claiming to be "The Official Home of Shareaza", promoting the download of a client known as Shareaza V4(V6 ), an
iMesh clone with only small graphical modifications. This client is unable to connect to any open P2P network (such as
Gnutella,
G2 or the
eDonkey network, for example) and has strong limitations to the content shared: it offers
DRM-protected music to buy. As a result, the Shareaza Development Team was forced to move their home page to
SourceForge.net.
Versions prior to 2.3.1.0 of the original Shareaza connect to www.shareaza.com to update the program. From
1 January 2008 the current domain owner, Discordia LTD., a company based in
Cyprus and closely related to the
RIAA, suggests to users that ShareazaV6 is an update to open-source Shareaza. This vulnerability was fixed in Shareaza 2.3.1.0, released on January 3.
Yahoo, which uses
SiteAdvisor to filter their search results, no longer lists domain shareaza.com due to it being listed by SiteAdvisor as a security risk. Other website rating services, such as
WOT (Web of Trust), also rate Shareaza.com as dangerous.
Attempted trademark registration
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. The Shareaza Development Team have obtained legal representation to challenge the registration and a legal defense fund has been set up.
Loss of pantheraproject.net
After the loss of shareaza.com, the project moved to pantheraproject.net, where it was rebuilt and maintained by the Shareaza community. On
June 11,
2009 the pantheraproject.net domain was sabotaged by William Shields Erwin, who had been the administrator of the community forum and posted by the name of 'Rhythm'. As a result of his actions the contents of the website have been changed to mimic the Discordia owned Shareaza.com domain. William Erwin also attempted to sabotage parts of the project that were hosted on SourceForge, but they were restored shortly after by the SourceForge staff and he was banned from the project. On
June 15,
2009 the forums were reinstated. The pantheraproject.net domain is no longer related to the Shareaza project and its community.
Current release
The latest release of Shareaza is v2.4.0.0, 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 (the last version which works on Windows 9x is 2.3.1.0).
The next version (2.4.1.0), a v2.5 release candidate, was to be released around
October 1,
2009, followed by 2.5.0.0 a month later.
V2.3.1.0 is the last stable version of Shareaza that supports Windows 9x.
Awards
In
November 2008, Shareaza was featured on
SourceForge as
Project of the Month.
Shareaza and Linux
Sharelin is a limited
Shareaza for Linux under development . It is based on Shareaza but the current release is not yet a full clone. It is being developed as a SourceForge project by one of Shareaza's developers.
It is also possible to run Shareaza under
Linux using
Wine. Although the media player does not work, uploading and downloading work flawlessly.
See also
