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LimeWire Forced To Shutdown, FrostWire Alternative

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:04:20 +0000

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 in the P2P client. 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.

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.

FrostWire, free and fast Gnutella

Joe — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:52:53 +0000

LimeWire is a popular P2P client which uses the Gnutella network. Unfortunately, it limits the amount of ultrapeers to whom connections can be made, in effect reducing the amount of search results and the number of people from whom downloads can be made. LimeWire only removes these limitations if its Pro version is bought at the cost of $35.

As LimeWire is open-source, several forks of it exist. One of these forks is called FrostWire, a client which appears and works in a similar fashion but removes many limitations of the free version of LimeWire. FrostWire also has some features which LimeWire Pro lacks, such as BitTorrent support.

Unlike LimeWire Pro, FrostWire is completely free to use and download. FrostWire is based on LimeWire’s Java engine and as such, it works on OS X, Linux and Windows, providing Java 1.5 or above is installed.

FrostWire can identify files tagged as Creative Commons in searches, much like LimeWire does, it can filter out junk results like LimeWire, supports proxies, works well with iTunes and there’s no viruses or spyware with it. A more in-depth review is on my weblog, Webby’s World.

FrostWire is an easy way to save $35 if you really wanted to buy LimeWire Pro. It is also a way to ensure people do not profit from tools which mainly facilitate piracy!