Shareaza

Shareaza is a software application which was built in order to aid people in sharing and downloading files and directories, by connecting to the Gnutella 1, Gnutella 2, eDonkey, and DC++ networks.

After going through a pretty quick and smooth installation process, you are required to select your Internet connection type, as well as the desired download and upload speed in a configuration wizard.

Once you finish completing this step, you are acquainted with a well-organized interface. It displays a menu bar, a few tabs and an overview of your connection status, library, downloads, uploads and seeding torrents. Consequently, it is accessible to all user categories.

The search function is quite simple, as it only enables you to input a keyword and select the type of file you are interested in. Nonetheless, you should know that the results are displayed fairly quickly, and the process can be stopped at any point with just a click of the button.

Moreover, results can be viewed in the main along with details such as name, extension type, size, rating, status, client, time, country and host/count. Hovering over an item brings up even more information, and it is possible to download files or browse all the shared files from a particular user.

A download queue is available, while you can easily pause, resume or cancel such a process and preview multimedia files in the built-in media player, even if the download is not complete. It is also possible to create playlists and save them to the hard drive using an M3U format.

This utility comes bundled with a library, which enables you to view all the items you have shared with other users, as well as the ones you have downloaded over time.

You can also bring up properties pertaining to them, search for similar files, copy the URL, rename, remove, move or copy items from one location to another, as well as check them for viruses with VirusTotal.com.

Last but not least, it is possible to access a pretty extensive list of channels and connect to them, in order to communicate with other people, as well as remotely access this tool from any web browser.

In conclusion, Shareaza is a highly customizable peer-to-peer file sharing client which offers you access to a centralized database of software and multimedia resources. It encompasses a large amount of options which will keep you busy for quite a while, as well as an intuitive UI. The system’s performance is not going to be hindered, our tests did not reveal any errors, hangs or bugs, while the response time is relatively good.

Shareaza is part of these download collections: P2P Clients