Am I right in thinking that limewire and kazaa were like proto-BitTorrent ? P2P file sharing
Was Napster the original too?
Napster was the first dedicated p2p file sharing program IIRC. Peer-to-peer was done before then using DCC (direct client connection) on IRC servers, but it was hardly the same experience. Limewire and other BitTorrent software took off after the music industry killed Napster.
The brand was brought back a while later, and it was legitimate if I recall, but by that time nobody cared. BitTorrent had taken center stage, and iTunes had become a thing. The latter eclipsed BitTorrent (for music) because it was dead nuts reliable, and unlike BitTorrent, using it wouldn’t get your Internet cut off. And it was wired into the iPod ecosystem, so for most people it was a very easy choice.
I once downloaded a 650MB movie in less than 10 minutes. I dont know how that was possible at the time as I had a sub 1 mbit line. I just know I went to the bathroom and came back to a downloaded movie. Always figured it was a bug of some kind on the modem as apparently the cable modem was doing the rate limiting.
could? Idk bout you but I still can lol
Quality: 5 stars but it’s a 128mb MP3
For sure. You weren’t gonna hear the difference on your $2 headphones or the speakers connected to your monitor anyway.
Plus, file size was king. My first mp3 player (dlink dmp 90) had 16MB of internal memory and used those original SD cards for more (up to 32MB, but who could afford that?).
So 128kbps offered a really great compromise because it was still better than FM.
Define free? Constant viruses, trauma from seeing killings and executions. Was it worth it? Sure but it wasn’t free
Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Learning to torrent is what greatly increased my computer literacy when I was a kid.
Or dumb songs with swooshes in them lol
Came here to mention soulseek
FUCK, YEAH!!!
I was using Soulseek in 2005 just before Boards of Canada put out The Campfire Headphase, and I must have grabbed a fake because the version I heard sounded nothing like them and I didn’t care for it. Many years later I would realize my mistake, and the real thing is my favorite album of theirs, but I still wonder what that fakeout album actually was.
BoC!!! 🩵🥂
Still used today for FLACs
Among many other misattributed MP3s I downloaded off LimeWire, I remember downloading an mp3 of a “new leaked Nine Inch Nails song” called “Digital” that even had an intro read by a some DJ on a radio station (supposedly).
It ended up not being Nine Inch Nails, but I loved the song anyway, and had no idea what it was until a decade later when I found it again online. Still fuckin rocks too:
Boom Boom Satellites - Push Eject
I also remember a Tetris Theme remix by Aphex Twin that was very much not Aphex Twin.
I also remember downloading the Aphex Twin remix of Beck’s "Devil’s Haircut"and the remix was so bad I thought it had to be fake (it’s not).
I actually still have songs in my playlist that I discovered the same way. A lot of the saints were incorrectly labeled so it was hard to make sure you got the right one without listening to it. Found a lot of unknown artists this way.
Dude what is this Tetris one. I remember this too.
I also remember some some that was by a dj called dj triangle and it was a super high tempo song with all kinds of songs mixed in. Haven’t found it since those days.
Somewhere in my files I still have the file of a hoarse, cracked male voice singing along to Ricky Martin’s “Bailamos”, purportedly recorded from Martin’s mic by a sound tech when he was lip synching live on stage.
Probably fake, but I want to believe.
They even had “Don’t Worry, be Happy” by Bob Marley.
And when you downloaded “Yoursong.mp3.exe” you knew you were about to have the best day ever!
(To this day it amazes me how so many people don’t pay attention to file types and keeps them hidden.)
And most porn was that middle eastern dude getting his head cut off.
Fuck you for triggering that memory.
I can still hear the sounds he made.I remember actually searching that one out to see. Strange what you’ll do when you’re a teenager.
Was that the Chechen rebel video because I hated that
I blame Windows, as it (I believe) hid file extensions of known file types by default. Was it, because it was aesthetically more pleasing? I dunno but it sure was a hazard for the unaware user.
Their entire security model depends on knowing file extensions, but they still hide them. Even if you enable it, there are some extensions that still won’t show, like .lnk (shortcut file). You can absolutely have executable code, and therefore malware in a .lnk file.
I believe there were also files like “yoursong.mp3 .exe” (not sure how this will render, but lots of spaces before the .exe so it would be hidden by the UI even if extensions weren’t hidden).
Custom icons didn’t help either, since they could just use the default icon for the spoofed file type. Though using a different program that changed the icon would negate that and make any of them obvious.
Also helps to use a method other than double clicking the file to open it, like drag and drop. Which was my usual flow with mp3s anyways because I generally added them to my massive playlist and double clicking risked replacing my playlist (that might have not been saved in forever) with a playlist with just that single song.
I liked it when winamp added the media library. Took me forever to rate my songs, but eventually my “new song flow” was move the new album folder to the artist’s folder in my music folder then tell winamp to rescan for new files, and then import my 3+ star or unrated songs as my playlist, played on shuffle. And occasionally grab a new format plugin if the album was encoded as something new and rescan until the new songs show up. Then give any noise or gag tracks 1 or 2 stars so they don’t make it to my main list after the first listen.
I believe there were also files like “yoursong.mp3 .exe” (not sure how this will render, but lots of spaces before the .exe so it would be hidden by the UI even if extensions weren’t hidden).
Replace your double-quotes with backticks, like this:
yoursong.mp3 .exe.
While it’s super annoying for the tech savvy, and gives a great opportunity to ill willed tech people, I’m sure it was an idiot proofing move. The average user is a not-so-tech-savvy office person, having relatively fuck all knowledge on extensions, and back in the day pretty much all programs got picky when facing an unknown/unsupported extension. Your average Joe/Jolene opened ‘veryimportantspreadsheet.xls’, renamed it to ‘veryimportantspreadsheetnew’ (without the extension), and made it impossible for Excel to open it by double clicking. Then in the best case they triggered an IT support request; in the worst case they reported that the very important spreadsheet got lost/corrupted and data was lost.
Even if somehow a quarter of the songs you downloaded started with “My fellow Americans…”
That was painful.
These sorts of programs still exist. I use Nictotine, which is based on Medusa, but basically works like a better version of the old MP3 download programs. Good for finding obscure artists.
Soulseek is basically the same thing too, and still works.
Limewire was the rotten version of Kazaa, Kazaa lite and Bearshare. Loads of viruses and mallware. By the time Limewire was there, torrents were already so much better, but usenet has always been, and still are far superior. I pay €9,50 for usenet and download anything I want. No more streaming services, just fully automated movie and series downloads with Radarr and Sonarr. It runs on my NAS, so every morning I have new episodes downloaded, repaired, extracted, renamed and placed in the right series folders. I have more rights, better quality, no ads, better service, subtitles, log of what I watched with Kodi, I can stream what I want to watch from my NAS from all around the world.
Fuck me i haven’t thought of bearshare in 10 years
10? Only 10? Last time I used it was at least 20 years ago. I’m almost 38, I used it when I was 16. We’re old dude
Using LimeWire free to download LimeWire Pro. Classic.
Soulseek is an ad-free, spyware free, just plain free file sharing network for Windows, Mac and Linux. Our rooms, search engine and search correlation system make it easy for you to find people with similar interests, and make new discoveries!
Soulseek is very good to grab rare music and other stuff difficult to find on mainstream medias/markets
It’s good that Soulseek exists, but it’s way more finicky than LimeWire was and it’s significantly less user friendly
I’ve literally never had a problem with it.
I downloaded Nicotine, made an account, selected the folder for media, then searched for the movie I wanted and hit download. It puts the movie in the folder I selected and then once it’s downloaded i put it on my movie drive.
SongYouWanted.mp3.txt.rar.zip.lnk.exe
