LimeWire Forced To Shutdown, FrostWire Alternative

Martin Brinkmann
Oct 27, 2010
Updated • Dec 2, 2012
File Sharing, Internet
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The New York District Court has ordered LimeWire to shutdown immediately by disabling functionality in the software client that allows users to share copyrighted materials with other peers over the Internet. Users who visit LimeWire's website are greeted with a legal notice detailing that "LimeWire is under a court-ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing software".

TorrentFreak has the whole story and some interesting figures on the market share of the now-defunct P2P system. The figures are from 2008, but show a massive market share of 37%, followed by uTorrent with 14%. This has likely changed a bit over the course of two years, with torrents become more popular.

Legal Notice

This is an official notice that Limewire is under a court ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file-sharing software. Downloading or sharing copyrighted content without authorization is illegal.

Some users report that the LimeWire client installed on their system now refuses to update. Others report that the client itself is still working as intended and showing results for searches, which makes sense considering that it operates on the Gnutella network which has not been affected by the ruling. And while the P2P software is not available on the developer's homepage, it is still available on third party download portals.

LimeWire users who are looking for an alternative may want to take a look at the Open Source client FrostWire which offers a similar functionality. Check out Alternative.to for more LimeWire replacements.

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Comments

  1. scamed said on December 31, 2011 at 8:32 am
    Reply

    still waiting on my court order settlemnt, has any esle rec’d anything

  2. adriana said on September 13, 2011 at 6:31 pm
    Reply

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  3. Music Freak said on July 25, 2011 at 3:54 am
    Reply

    Just like someone mentioned before. just go to youtube and use a youtube to mp3 converter and there you go. they can’t stop me and they can’t stop us all.

  4. SuperBee said on July 4, 2011 at 11:50 pm
    Reply

    July 4, 2011
    Limewire still working P2P
    No problem searching or downloading

    1. Shineram said on July 5, 2011 at 1:37 pm
      Reply

      Superbee you are so wrong. Even Frostwire doesn’t work. Anyone know of any FREE sites?

  5. BDLC said on March 11, 2011 at 7:11 pm
    Reply

    My frostwire will not download songs…. help???

    1. Ray said on January 1, 2012 at 4:02 pm
      Reply

      Frostwire DOES NOT WORK. THERE ISN’T ANY SUCH THING AS A “FREE” MUSIC DOWNLOAD SITE UNLESS LIMEWIRE RETURNS.

  6. the music said on March 10, 2011 at 6:09 pm
    Reply

    Stop downloading music illegally. Get a job and pay for your own music people.

    1. ZanNeko said on May 16, 2011 at 3:13 pm
      Reply

      Oh shush. It’s not like the artists actually care, they’re rich anyway.

  7. kad1977 said on March 8, 2011 at 4:05 am
    Reply

    my frostwire was not working a couple months ago understanding of the court order but now my frostwire is working just as it was before with maybe less results to choose from for downloads but i can download songs that just came out 2011 now!

  8. dave said on March 6, 2011 at 2:54 pm
    Reply

    Well no matter what they do there will always be an alternative , frostwire for music and utorrent for everything else is amazing + the pirate pay is even better ….. middle finger the corporate pigs and governments i think so :D

  9. Ray said on February 7, 2011 at 4:48 am
    Reply

    Frostwire provides very few songs, searches usually give you Limewire info. BearShare is not free except for a few songs. There’s nothing else out there that is truly free anymore.

  10. The Unknown said on February 1, 2011 at 9:00 pm
    Reply

    I will surely miss Limewire, but if you’re thinking of using frostwire think again, You’ll be out witted by a confusing User inferface, tons of Trojans and worms and millions of viruses (Some so bad that you’ll have to wipe your drives & start over).

    Kazaa – Has and still IS tapped by the RIAA cops. They trace your IP.
    eMule / eDonkey – Still confusing and tons of bad and corrupted files.
    IMesh – Bad in 2000, Still bad in 2010

    Bearshare –
    } – Try your luck, Or check out Cnet’s http://www.download.com
    MP3Rocket –

    L.I.M.E.W.I.R.E

    R.I.P. – Rest In Peace

    True meaning

    R.I.P. – RISE IF POSSIBLE

  11. Anonymous said on January 26, 2011 at 6:55 am
    Reply

    is frostwire still working or did they shut that down too?

  12. Mike said on January 17, 2011 at 6:24 pm
    Reply

    Limewire was good but Frostwire is better.

  13. shorty240b said on January 12, 2011 at 7:58 am
    Reply

    will some one tell me where i can get free music besides frost wire

    1. Bradley said on January 17, 2012 at 8:50 am
      Reply

      use youtube to download free music, you can use realplayer to download the music videos, then use a video converter to change into an mp3 file

    2. Star said on January 28, 2011 at 7:53 am
      Reply

      Try MP3Rocket, BearShare, eMule, Kazaa, or even iMesh.

      1. Ray said on March 8, 2011 at 5:55 pm
        Reply

        Bearshare is great if you want to pay for the songs. Kazaa sucks as does Imesh. Frostwire works well for me.

  14. musicopensource said on January 9, 2011 at 12:19 am
    Reply

    Well, then use the youtube ones, not hard………….they cant shutdown youtube, google owns it :), and google will take a shit on the record companies if they try anything.

  15. Jeff_Fro said on January 7, 2011 at 3:44 am
    Reply

    I think the whole argument is ridiculous because when I was a kid I used record music off the radio all the time. There was nothing in place to stop you from doing that. It’s a big joke.

    Another post said basically the same thing, “They say that LimeWire cost record companies millions… WRONG ! They are assuming that all the downloaded songs would have been bought if not they had been available free. I don’t know about you but I would have simply gone without…”

    Indeed! That’s what I used to do when I taped music off the radio. If I couldn’t have recorded it, I would have just heard it when they played it, or call in and request it…

    1. Anonymous said on January 8, 2011 at 1:41 am
      Reply

      dangit,,,,,i guess now tey will shut down the radio too

  16. ET said on January 4, 2011 at 5:47 pm
    Reply

    The limewire you now have installed will work fine for now…mine still does….

  17. .... said on January 2, 2011 at 12:18 am
    Reply

    how the fuck do i download frostwire …i tried to go to http://www.frostwire.com and installing it but once i have already installed it a pop up tells me its unable to run …im soo pissed i really want to download music

  18. Jodi said on December 30, 2010 at 2:32 am
    Reply

    I am not being able to download anything on Frostwire anymore. Is it shut down too?

  19. ala said on December 29, 2010 at 9:34 am
    Reply

    im tired of everyone saying limewire gave you virus’s. the only time it ever gave a virus was when it said this file may contain a virus: download anyways? and the newest liimewires had avg built in..

  20. Taylorr #13 fann said on December 15, 2010 at 12:45 am
    Reply

    My frostwire isn’t shuttting down. its just a blank window. Help? :) <3

  21. jay said on December 10, 2010 at 11:26 pm
    Reply

    the courts are dumb and the RIAA is suing everybody the distibutes free music just cause they are not making any money any more its stupid though because only less than one percent of people make it into the music industry shutting down limewire will (not) stop people from downloading free music..and if the courts shut down file-sharing websites more will come out so basically its a waste of money to try and stop websites that distribute free music cause more will come out everyday regardless of what the courts do there are over 100,000 fire-sharing websites where you can get free music if the courts think they can battle the free music war they are wasting time because its like battling the porn industry telling them that it is wrong to do what they do in reality if that ever did happen they wont ever be able to shut down 1.3 million of the porn websites that are out there so From me to the music industry you wont win in the us economy there are jobs that come and go and unfortunately it is musics time to go byebye so dont get mad and sue everybody when it is your time to leave the job market

  22. Anonymous said on December 3, 2010 at 6:48 am
    Reply

    frostwire is a goner to :'(

  23. .. said on November 21, 2010 at 3:16 am
    Reply

    Shutup trent

  24. Trent said on November 17, 2010 at 6:56 am
    Reply

    Why were people even using Limewire???? Frostwire gives a lot less viruses has turbocharged connection for free and is just all around better i believe. All the same Limewire was my starting point and it will surely be missed.

  25. Jesse said on November 9, 2010 at 2:58 am
    Reply

    I was a Limewire fan, too. But there are, and always have been, lots of great alternatives. Do your homework :)

  26. gab said on November 6, 2010 at 11:04 pm
    Reply

    My limewire still works even though it is written: legal notice. (I have version 4.18.18)
    So….it is not shutdown. what’s the problem???

  27. pervert said on November 5, 2010 at 7:55 am
    Reply

    would their be a possibilities for Limewire to resume its system?? or does the court order decides to shutdown Limewire for the rest of our lives?? huh?? is there anybody out there who can share me what’s the real score and the changes that’ll gonna happen… )’=

  28. redneck said on November 5, 2010 at 4:41 am
    Reply

    oh well i guess all good things must come to an end,besides i was tired of screwing up my computer for the sake of a few good songs…anywhere u can download a bunch of free porn cant be good

  29. bei said on November 3, 2010 at 2:08 pm
    Reply

    sooooo sad…
    i love limewire so much.. i tried frostwire and it sucks! frostwire’s UI is so confusing!

    1. Jonny DGTL said on June 22, 2012 at 10:46 pm
      Reply

      WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!?!!! THEY’RE THE EXACT SAME!!!

  30. cody said on November 2, 2010 at 1:12 pm
    Reply

    agreed! :)

  31. Fraser said on November 2, 2010 at 6:07 am
    Reply

    They say that LimeWire cost record companies millions… WRONG ! They are assuming that all the downloaded songs would have been bought if not they had been available free. I don’t know about you but I would have simply gone without…

    1. welner said on January 21, 2011 at 5:07 am
      Reply

      Lol you hit the nail in the head.

  32. James said on October 30, 2010 at 6:51 pm
    Reply

    sounds like you just need to get an old version of Limewire.

  33. Stuart said on October 29, 2010 at 10:07 pm
    Reply

    ummmmmmmmmmm, do you not realise limewire has trojan horses?

    Ive been using frostwire for years, plus you get a turbocharged connection for free, you dumbasses

  34. dickhead said on October 29, 2010 at 12:37 pm
    Reply

    well dickheads, they shutdown limewire so you can go and blurt out the next one there gonna shut down..

    1. douchebag1032 said on November 26, 2010 at 10:40 am
      Reply

      frostwire gone too

    2. assclown said on October 29, 2010 at 10:40 pm
      Reply

      Yeah, cause frostwire is a big secret

  35. limewirelover said on October 29, 2010 at 7:48 am
    Reply

    I’m super sad about this! :’-( I’m not surprised though. Good-bye Limewire. You will be missed. Frostwire here I come! :-)

  36. Wirdo said on October 29, 2010 at 4:39 am
    Reply

    R.I.P Limewire. :(

  37. Laneete said on October 27, 2010 at 11:01 pm
    Reply

    A sad day. on to the next one … http://www.frostwire.com!

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