Shareaza Review

Name: Shareaza
Homepage: Shareaza.sf.net
Cost: Free
Recommended: Yes

First of all know your Gnutella history. To expand on my editorial; on May 6th Shareaza 1.9 was released. In this version, Shareaza now had the ability to connect to the ED2K network and act as a BitTorrent client. However its support for these protocols wasn’t seen as a step forward. Shareaza quickly became known for raping ED2K servers and BitTorrent trackers. Let me explain:

On the ED2K network, when you send a search to a server, you’re suppose to receive a chunk of the results, this is how eDonkey2000 and eMule operate. However, Shareaza requests every bit of information. This increases stress on the servers. Once a download starts, eDonkey2000 checks for new sources every # of seconds. Shareaza is constantly looking for more sources. This again increases the stress on servers. When there’s a connection timeout, eDonkey2000 waits 16 seconds before trying to reconnect. Shareaza tries to reconnect instantly. Shareaza’s host cache of ED2K mets allows users to make connections to multiple servers at once. This also increases the stress on the servers. ED2K isn’t very compatible with G2 as well. The G2 settings in Shareaza have 4 ways of putting a client in queue: 1 for partially complete files, 1 for a small file, 1 for a medium file and 1 for a large file. The ED2K setting only has 1 mode for putting a download in queue.

Shareaza attempted to integrate the network settings for BitTorrent into the settings it uses for Gnutella, G2 and ED2K. That way you’re download and upload caps end up at an average of the speeds you expect to get from the 4 networks. But since BitTorrent is far faster in downloads and uploads than any of the other networks, the BitTorrent speeds suffer greatly. It’s like putting a cheetah on a skateboard. Limiting your BitTorrent speeds could be seen as harmless, but the longer you have the torrent open, the more you have to scrape the tracker for updates on how the torrent is doing. So Shareaza increases the stress on the tracker. Several BitTorrent trackers have completely banned Shareaza. The world’s largest IPB and torrent forum, SNF even banned the word “Shareaza”.

With all that said, I recommend Shareaza. It is a feature rich, stable and smart P2P program. What’s past is past and Shareaza isn’t doing any real harm to anyone, anymore. On June 2nd 2004, Shareaza went open source. Its ED2K and BitTorrent support has been the highest priority, they are now both useable. Its GUI is skinnable, however you can disable the skins if you want to save yourself some RAM. One amazing feature of Shareaza is the ability to swarm between networks. This is done by taking the starting hash and then rewriting it for every network you’re connected to. This lets you download from Gnutella, G2 and ED2K at the same time. Other multi-network P2P clients have struggled with this. The 2 multi-net giant’s giFT and MLDonkey cannot do this.

To prove I’m not a Shareaza fan boy let me point out 2 flaws in Shareaza. 1, it has a Remote Access feature: You setup a username and password in the Shareaza settings. Then open up a browser, type your ip:port number/remote/ or localhost:port number/remote or 127.0.0.1/remote. The username and password are stored in the registry, so I found you had to restart the program every time I changed my username and password. I also found that your username and password changes wouldn’t always save upon exiting the Shareaza settings. God help you when it comes to loging in.

The 2nd flaw goes back to the BitTorrent support. You can’t track or even make torrents in Shareaza. There’s little to no chance of ever implementing the DHT layer used by the BitTorrent or Vuze. There’s no protocol encryption. So if you have a bad ISP, that slows BitTorrent traffic, your torrent speeds could be severely reduced. With normal Bittorrent clients you can watch the individual file(s) grow from 0B to full size. But in Shareaza, the incomplete data is sealed up in a batch file. So if you choose to stop your download in Shareaza and want to continue with a different client, it’ll get a bit tricky. Though, there is a tool that’ll split up the batch file in the official Shareaza forums. Shareaza’s BitTorrent support is stuck in 2004.

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