February 15, 2001

12:07 PM

Who needs napster?Lo-tech file sharing staring me in the face - just add your ftp site to the mix et voila - searchable sharing. "Leech and let leech."
posted by J. R. Hughto (14 comments total)

Bah. Half the sites are banner sites, and clicking on images of girls giving head so that I can download a song... Not cool.

This isn't leech and let leech. This is just a list o' FTP servers, with ratios and banners and casinos, and everything normally associated with them. There's a reason why Napster gained popularity. It's simple. No YOUNG HOT SLUTS to click on.
posted by Jairus at 12:15 PM on February 15, 2001

I've been using it for 2 days and have not encountered one "young hot slut"... though I have found bootlegs of Braid not available on Napster...

Hmmm... what searches are you doing?
posted by J. R. Hughto at 12:18 PM on February 15, 2001

i've searched for four items already, and gotten "server returned extended information" errors for all of the results. not good.
posted by pnevares at 12:34 PM on February 15, 2001

anyone use winmx?
despite the few negative comments, for a user with any technical-know-how, it is easy to use and kicks ass. you can configure to hit any number of networks. it's napster results X 100. if you're downtrodden over the injunction that will shut the ports at napster, get this now and scour(oops, they're dead aren't they?) loads of other networks.
posted by donkeysuck at 12:35 PM on February 15, 2001

Yep, there's a reason why napster got popular. FTP is uttery crap, for leeching anyway. 99% of the searched servers are dead, when you do find one that's working, ratios are horrible, xxx banners are annoying. The whole thing stinks to high hell.
posted by tiaka at 12:44 PM on February 15, 2001

The more popular it is, the more likely it is that it'll be shut down. Programs like hotline are confusing enough to the average user (and frustrating enough to the average leech) that they'll never be as well-known as Napster, and will never be shut down the way Napster was.

The key is stop being a leech, contribute to the file sharing community, make some connections, and you'll soon be able to get anything you want without a problem.
posted by jragon at 1:04 PM on February 15, 2001

@Home often scans me on port 21 to see if I am running anything there... though they haven't yet hassled me about the mighty Daimajin :-)
posted by tranquileye at 1:04 PM on February 15, 2001

What about mIRC? I like using this to get music--I used it before Napster and still use it now. I've got dsl and they have channels solely for cable/dsl people. After a friend explained to me how to do it, it's a piece of cake. I've been fairly successful finding music I want, with the exception of extremely rare stuff. I do agree, however, that Napster's interface and servers just made life *much* easier than anything out there now.
posted by rio at 1:44 PM on February 15, 2001

Has anyone ever made an fserve spider? I've never seen one, and I keep meaning to try it. Good idea? Or no?
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:00 PM on February 15, 2001

Hm... So maybe I missed something, but this is nothing new.

Like tiaka said, though, it basically sucks. "Back in the day," it wasn't so bad. There were plenty of leech sites. Nowadays, it's almost entirely ratio, or worse, banner...

I ran a happy li'l leech mp3 ftp server for a good while. It was fun. I put it on MediaFind and Audiogalaxy's ftp index, I believe. Some people didn't seem to understand the fact that it was no-ratio, though, and left me nasty messages in the upload folder. :-P
posted by whatnotever at 2:19 PM on February 15, 2001

A couple days ago I started using Audio Galaxy and I'm very happy with it.

Then again, I'm not a pro at this sort of stuff, but it's treating me well.
posted by schlomo at 3:27 PM on February 15, 2001

The best experiences I've ever had looking for software have been with Hotline. Hotline has stuff that you'd have to spend days searching for ftp servers for.

search away
posted by yangwar at 4:25 PM on February 15, 2001

i second schlomo's choice of audio galaxy.. i've tried almost all of the file sharing tools, and audio galaxy has come out the absolute winner for me. it ensures your downloads complete with resume, it tracks multiple copies of the same file so that if someone is offline, you can get it from someone else who has the exact same file, it even does amazon style cross referencing of artists so you can find similar musicians that you might not have heard of before.

uninstall napster. it was just a hold out till something better came along anyway.
posted by titboy at 11:44 PM on February 15, 2001

F****** hell, can't use it at the Office (fireweall), and there's no Audiogalaxy for Mac. Argh.
posted by Sirine at 1:10 AM on February 16, 2001