Welcome to the forum. Read this first !

[Mr. Belvedere]

This thread was last updated on November 7 2003


Welcome to all of you.

We hope you have a pleasant flight and keep your arms inside the vehicle at all times.

In order to have a safe and pleasant journey , we have established some basic rules , which you can find here , but for this particular part of the forum , two additional rules apply.

1st and most important rule :

!! NO ILLEGAL CONTENT WHATSOEVER !!

Got that ? Good.. let's move on to the second rule.

2nd rule : Understand the 1st rule completely , obey the 1st rule and do not deviate from the 1st rule at all.

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What is P2P anyway ?

P2P stands for "Peer to Peer" and explains a communication technique to share and transfer various computer files. The emphasis being on music , such as Mpeg-Layer3 (mp3 for short) files.

mp3's ? That's illegal !

Not necessarily. There are various (record) companies and artists who like to share (some of) their music , using the internet and its various multitude of programs.

What kind of music network (sharing) programs are there ?

To name a few :

For Microsoft Windows operating systems :

Gnutella
Morpheus
Kazaa Lite
BearShare
Blubster
WinMX
DirectConnect
NapShare
VooDoo Vision
Phex
Konspire

Kazaa (SpyWare)
EDonkey (SpyWare)
Grokster (SpyWare)
AudioGalaxy (SpyWare)
LimeWire (SpyWare)
SongSpy (SpyWare)
iMesh (SpyWare)


For Linux operating systems.

AudioGalaxy
EDonkey
LimeWire
Qtella
NapShare
VooDoo Vision
DirectConnect
Phex
Konspire


For Macintosh operating systems :

EDonkey
Phex
Carracho
Konspire


What's that SpyWare thingy ?

In general, spyware is any technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the Internet, spyware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties. Spyware can get in a computer as a software virus or as the result of installing a new program. Data collecting programs that are installed with the user's knowledge are not, properly speaking, spyware, if the user fully understands what data is being collected and with whom it is being shared.
The cookie is a well-known mechanism for storing information about an Internet user on their own computer. However, the existence of cookies and their use is generally not concealed from users, who can also disallow access to cookie information. Nevertheless, to the extent that a Web site stores information about you in a cookie that you don't know about, the cookie mechanism could be considered a form of spyware. DoubleClick, a leading banner ad serving company, changed its plans to combine cookie information with database information from other sources to target ad campaigns directly to individuals without their permission. DoubleClick's current policy is not to collect "personally-identifiable" information about a user without their explicit permission or "opt-in."

Aureate Media, which distributes free software on the Web in exchange for the right to gather user information, is another company that has been criticized for not plainly indicating what data it gathers and for making it difficult to remove its programming.

Spyware is part of an overall public concern about privacy on the Internet

The above article was found here. If you want more information , you can check here as well. Best advice i can give you is to stay the hell away from spyware or adware related programs.

How do i get rid of spyware ?

Some spyware tools are considered Trojan Horses , or even worse ; viruses and are thus scanned and cleaned by your favourite virusscanner. If you do not have a virusscanner , i suggest downloading and installing one. I have very good experiences with this one.

Other tools to remove spyware are :

AdAware (Highly Recommended !)
SpyHunter
PestScan (OnLine !)
SpyBot

Remember that most spyware programs will try whatever it takes to get some control over your system. If your browser is acting funny , your firewall doesn't stop blinking and every time you make a mistake , the computer is suddenly coming up with popup screens.. you probably have been infected.

Is spyware legal ?

90% Yes. There are no official international rules , but some of the spyware programs act as viruses , which may be illegal in your part of the world. Usually spyware is perfectly legal if it is mentioned in the End User License Agreement (EULA) of the main program. (Remember that "i agree" button ?)

Any more cool downloads ?

Well ,there is Edskes Download Mirror , which gives you about a zillion possibilties to download Kazaa related programs.

Enjoy the forum !


Note : There is no way to control every single program continously wether it contains spyware in it or not. The information is as accurate as humanly possible , but can contain errors.