Shareaza is a

peer-to-peer file sharing Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program t ...

client running under

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

which supports the

gnutella Gnutella is a peer-to-peer network protocol. Founded in 2000, it was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model. In June 2005, Gnutella's population was 1.81 million compute ...

, Gnutella2 (G2), eDonkey, BitTorrent, FTP,

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...

and

HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...

network protocols and handles

magnet link Magnet is a URI scheme that defines the format of magnet links, a de facto standard for identifying files ( URN) by their content, via cryptographic hash value rather than by their location. Although magnet links can be used in a number of co ...

s, ed2k links, and the now deprecated gnutella and Piolet links. It is available in 30 languages. Shareaza was developed by Michael Stokes until June 1, 2004, and has since been maintained by a group of volunteers. On June 1, 2004, Shareaza 2.0 was released, along with the source code, under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

(GPL-2.0-or-later), making it

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

Features

Multi-network

Shareaza can connect to

, G2, eDonkey and BitTorrent. Shareaza hashes its files for all networks, and then distributes those hash values on G2. This allows Shareaza to download one file from several networks at once. When another client connected to G2 finds such a file, it is given the hash values for all networks and can search on the other networks with their respective hash values, which increases the number of sources and the download speed of the file. Shareaza also uses its G2 network to find more sources for torrents.

Security filter

The Shareaza client has some basic

content filter An Internet filter is software that restricts or controls the content an Internet user is capable to access, especially when utilized to restrict material delivered over the Internet via the Web, Email, or other means. Content-control software det ...

s including a forced

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person young ...

and optional adult pornography filter, and some other optional filters such as a filter for files encumbered with

Digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted work ...

(DRM). Shareaza's security filters can also be extended with user-defined keywords and/or IP addresses. Later versions of Shareaza allow for the use of

regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" ...

s and filtering by

hash Hash, hashes, hash mark, or hashing may refer to: Substances * Hash (food), a coarse mixture of ingredients * Hash, a nickname for hashish, a cannabis product Hash mark *Hash mark (sports), a marking on hockey rinks and gridiron football fiel ...

. These filters increase the chances of getting the files the user wants and decrease the chance of getting malicious or fake files. The file format used for the filters is an extendable

XML schema An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. These constra ...

. The filters are editable inside Shareaza, and can be exported from the application to be shared with others.

Plugins

Shareaza implements a framework for additional plugins. The Shareaza installer ships several plugins. Most of them are used to read and strip off built in

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

from the files being hashed and convert it to an external XML based format, or to decode

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

files for making a preview for other G2 clients. Some others serve the need of a media player inside Shareaza, and enhancements of that media player.

Third party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a V ...

plugins can also be used, for example, ''Sharemonkey'', which will add a link inside Shareaza when downloading or searching copyrighted material from where it can be legally downloaded.

Skins

The client can have almost all parts of the

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

skinned. This includes bars, icons, as well as backgrounds and buttons. In that way, Shareaza can be completely changed with colors, images, new buttons, etc. A basic list of skins is contained in the Shareaza installer package. Other skins can be downloaded in the community forums or found via a search for .sks (Shareaza skin files) in the G2 network. The skins are zip archives, renamed with the

extension Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values that satisfy the predicate * Ext ...

.sks, containing icons and images, as well as an

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

file which binds the images and colors with the GUI. This feature is also used for localization. The language files are XML files, like the normal skins, but not zipped. The XML file contains the translations for a certain part of the program. This enables languages to be easily changed, updated and tested without compiling an entire binary.

Modes

Shareaza has three user modes. The first one is for normal users. This mode is the default mode and provides a clean, trimmed GUI. Users will not be able to make major changes to settings in this mode, but will be able to make use of the most essential functions, like searching and downloading. The second mode is for

power user A power user is a user of computers, software and other electronic devices, who uses advanced features of computer hardware, operating systems, programs, or websites which are not used by the average user. A power user might not have extensive tec ...

s. It provides more access to network and advanced settings, but can also break your connection to the networks. The third mode is the windowed mode. In this mode, users can see different tabs (windows) simultaneously, providing a lot of control about the things happening. This mode also makes it possible to personalize the look of the client to perfectly fit the needs of the respective user.

IRC

Shareaza contains a built-in IRC (chat) client which allows users to communicate with each other. There are channels in several languages for support and help. These channels are located on th
P2PChat servers
and can also by joined by any normal IRC client or via a

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

addon on the Shareaza homepage.

History

In mid-2002 Stokes released the first version of a

client he had written and dubbed "Shareaza". It was from the beginning a client with the aim of having features other gnutella clients did not have. Over the next two years Stokes coded in support for the eDonkey 2000 network, BitTorrent and a rewritten gnutella-based protocol which he named Gnutella2. On June 1, 2004 Stokes released the Shareaza source code under the GPL-2.0-or-later license (which coincided with the release of Shareaza version 2.0). Shareaza joined

LimeWire LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of pirated materials, particularly pirated mus ...

, Gnucleus, and others as an open source client on the gnutella network. Since the beginning Shareaza was advertised as "completely free. No ads, no spyware, no guilting you to upgrade to a commercial version", stating that the developers " ouldn'tstand that kind of crap." It has remained as such in each subsequent release. From the first version Shareaza has supported swarming,

, library management, and automatic file hashing.

Domain takeover

On 19 December 2007 the project's

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

, shareaza.com, was redirected to a site claiming to be "The Official Home of Shareaza", promoting the download of a client known as Shareaza V4 (which had become V6 in October 2009, V7 in August 2010, and V8 ) unrelated to releases by the Shareaza development team, an iMesh clone with only small graphical modifications, and using Shareaza v1 logo. The domain owner Jon Nilson was forced to sell it as a part of a settlement with ''La Societe Des Producteurs De Phonogrammes En France''. This client is a network interface for a centralised music shop by Discordia Ltd., and does not connect to any open P2P network such as

, G2, eDonkey or BitTorrent. Content is limited to the DRM-protected music that can be bought in Discordia's online music store; Discordia is a company based in

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...

, closely related to the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...

and unrelated to the Shareaza development team. In response the Shareaza development team moved their website to

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...

. Versions prior to 2.3.1.0 of the original Shareaza connected to www.shareaza.com to check for software updates. From 1 January 2008 the new owner of the domain shareaza.com, Discordia Ltd. used this update check mechanism to suggest to users that ShareazaV4 (and later ShareazaV5, V6, and V7) was an update to the original Shareaza client. Since version 2.3.1.0, released on 3 January 2008, the original Shareaza has linked to the Shareaza pages at sourceforge.net.

Trademark registration by iMesh

On January 10, 2008, the new owners of Shareaza.com, Discordia Ltd ( iMesh Inc.), filed for trademark registration of the Shareaza name in an attempt to stop the original developers from using the name, claiming that the first-ever use was on December 17, 2007. The Shareaza Development Team obtained legal representation to challenge the registration and a legal defense fund was set up. The development team appointed William Erwin to handle the donations; it was stated that he had been paid by iMesh to sabotage the defense, and that he had stolen the money donated. The trademark was awarded to iMesh after the development team had given up defending the trademark.

Version history

Release notes for all versions from 2.0.0.0 are linked from the Sharaza ChangeLog page. v2.3.1.0
Version 2.3.1.0 is the last stable version of Shareaza that supports Windows 9x. It followed 2 days after the new owners of the project domain exploited the updating mechanism to emit a false update message to trick users into installing their fake Shareaza V4 client, and contained a fix for this issue. v2.4.0.0
Version 2.4.0.0 of Shareaza was released on October 1, 2008, with many bug fixes and major changes to provide better stability of the client. It was the first stable release to include IRC support. Furthermore, major changes to the

torrent Torrent or torrents may refer to: * A fast flowing stream Animals * Torrent duck, a species of the family Anatidae * Torrent fish * Torrent frog, various unrelated frogs * Torrent robin, a bird species * Torrent salamander, a family of sa ...

handling mechanism were made and

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

/ Me support was discontinued (the last version working on Windows 9x is 2.3.1.0). When v2.4 was released the roadmap for the next version (2.4.1.0, a v2.5 release candidate) was set for release around October 1, 2009, to be followed by 2.5.0.0 a month later. v2.5.x.0
Version 2.5.0.0 of Shareaza was released on October 31, 2009. It was significantly more stable and less resource-consuming than earlier versions, and further improved BitTorrent support, such as by selective downloading of files contained in batch torrents and download prioritization. There were also updates to the

and eD2k implementation, such as extended support for GGEP, large files and chat. The IRC implementation of v2.4.0.0 was reworked to free it of the bugs that made it partially unusable in the previous version. Download manager capabilities were extended,

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems (in ...

integration added, and ''BugTrap'' included to speed up and simplify reporting crashes. Version 2.5.1.0 of Shareaza was released on December 1, 2009. It was significantly more stable and more functional than its predecessor due to fixed bugs. It improved usability and compatibility of BitTorrent according to most popular service suggestions. It made use of and required the SSE instruction set, and thus required at least a Pentium-III or an Athlon-XP processor. Version 2.5.2.0 of Shareaza was released on February 6, 2010. It brought further improvements on stability. This and later versions were available optionally either as an SSE or non-SSE build to allow the use of older processors, unlike the SSE-only version 2.5.1.0. For this and later releases the SSE-optimized build uses

SSE2 SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) is one of the Intel SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) processor supplementary instruction sets first introduced by Intel with the initial version of the Pentium 4 in 2000. It extends the earlier SSE i ...

, and requires at least a

Pentium 4 Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs for desktops, laptops and entry-level servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 2008. The production of Netburst processors was active from 2000 ...

AMD Athlon 64 The Athlon 64 is a ninth-generation, AMD64-architecture microprocessor produced by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), released on September 23, 2003. It is the third processor to bear the name ''Athlon'', and the immediate successor to the Athlon#Athlo ...

. Shareaza v2.5.3.0, released on June 13, 2010, focused on internal changes and optimizations; the only significant addition was a scheduler that allows full control over what the application does at a given time while running unattended. Shareaza v2.5.4.0, released on February 12, 2011, improved

UPnP Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the n ...

support and added limited DC++ support.

μTorrent μTorrent, or uTorrent (see pronunciation) is a proprietary adware BitTorrent client owned and developed by Rainberry, Inc. with over 150 million users. It is the most widely used BitTorrent client outside China; globally only behind Xunlei. ...

-compatible peer exchange and tracker exchange for BitTorrent were also added. It fixed remaining IRC chat bugs and a lot of rather uncommon/rarely seen crashes. Shareaza v2.5.5.0, released on May 29, 2011, further improved

support and included DC++ and

updates, enhanced anti-spam protection during searches, and multi-file download merging. ;V2.6.0.0 V2.6.0.0 was released on 3 June 2012, adding support for BitTorrent (Mainline) DHT and UDP trackers as well as containing interface optimizations for Windows 7. ;V2.7.x.x Shareaza 2.7.0.0 was made available on 31 August 2013, with a great many bugfixes. It contained major improvements to the BitTorrent support, eDonkey uploading and the built-in media player. It was followed by further V2.7.x.x releases.

Awards and reviews

* In November 2008, Shareaza was

''Project of the Month''. * In December 2009 Shareaza was ranked number 5 in SourceForge.Net's "What's Hot for Windows?" file sharing software ranking with 78% "recommended" (while number 1 was 81% "recommended"). it was in the same position. The ranking is based on user recommendations and opinions and downloads of software from project site.

References

External links

*
Project forums
on SourceForge.net
Shareaza Links
to Shareaza project and related or interesting pages in Shareaza wiki
ShareazaSource
Shareaza-related security and scam awareness information * {{File sharing Free BitTorrent clients Free FTP clients Free Internet Relay Chat clients Free file sharing software Free software programmed in C++ Peer-to-peer file sharing Windows-only free software 2000 software Gnutella2