Kazaa lite and Official Kazaa

[sharedawealth]

I use Kazaa lite, because the official kazaa is loaded with adware. But I just thought I would raise the debate is Kazaa lite leeching off the fast track network?

As far as I know Kazaa does all the hard work in maintaining the network. Kazaa lite is an unofficial version without the ads. Kazaa are getting sued in the USA and might need advertising money to help pay in there court case. Perhaps Kazaa could tone down their adware so people would not have to use Kazaa lite?

:devil

[r_xq]

Probably 90% of Kazaa users use the official version. When you consider than 99% of Kazaa users download copyrighted material provided by Sharman at no expense to themselves, they arent really doing too badly.

As for all the work they do maintaining the network, all they do is provide a shit website and some bandwidth for downoading KMD, as well as some woefully inadequate program updates.

[nasrules]

Originally posted by sharedawealth
Perhaps Kazaa could tone down their adware so people would not have to use Kazaa lite?

to be fair, the only way sharman make their money is by advertising

[sharedawealth]

Good points, but I thought sharman maintained some major traffic nodes around the world to help kazaa transfer files. This is the reason why the fast track network is superior to gnutella?

Question: If kazaa folded would Kazaa lite still work? I think not. Because Kazaa lite relies on some kind of "mega nodes" maintained by sharman.

I might be wrong, if so correct me.

I would be interested to know how the fast track network really worked!:devil

[nasrules]

Originally posted by sharedawealth
Good points, but I thought sharman maintained some major traffic nodes around the world to help kazaa transfer files. This is the reason why the fast track network is superior to gnutella?

Question: If kazaa folded would Kazaa lite still work? I think not. Because Kazaa lite relies on some kind of "mega nodes" maintained by sharman.

I might be wrong, if so correct me.

I would be interested to know how the fast track network really worked!:devil

i think there is only one fasttrack "ultimate-node" which nodes connect to to get supernode addresses if they cant find any. however, i think this is only for older vesions and using kazupernodes you can now manually input supernode ip's

[overdo]

that is correct nasrules:fire
as for whether kazaa lite would work if sharman was forced to "shut down" kazaa, that depends on whether FT is truely decentralized or not.

[kamnet]

With the ability to jump supernodes, I see no reason why the FastTrack Network would disappear if Sharman goes out of business. From what I've read the "ultranode" is provided only as a convenience. This may be inconvenient for some KMD or Grokster users, but if it were to happen I think they'd get word of K++ quickly enough and make the switch.

As for Sharman, I have no problems with ripping off a company whose profit model is based on software which lets you rip off other companies. The real innovations in the FastTrack network haven't come from Sharman, but from independent developers who have taken the time to hack them in.

Eventually I see the original developers of FastTrack stepping back into the picture and providing some much-needed leadership in continuing the development of the network.

[Theinfamousone]

Kazaalite has the potential to be a hinderance to the FT network, but I think that the die hard file sharers that take the time to get Kazaalite are the ones that get good and rare files and make sure their upload bandwidth is being used for constructive purposes as opposed to just top 40 music and are more likely to not hurt the network that much as a whole even though they have superior software and a definate searching and downloading advantage over the normal users.

That's what I'd like to think when I use Kazaalite++. Their ad money doesn't mean jack, if it's going to go down, it'll go down, and it doesn't matter how much money Sharman does or doesn't have. And either way, I won't lose much sleep over it, the people have the files they have downloaded already and they'll just move to another network and believe me, there are better programs available than the pitifully ancient software Kazaa/Grokster use. Look at filespree for one. I'd like to see everyone move to Gnutella since it is a proven decentralized network, but the searching is pitiful compared to K++. You can search the whole fast track network in about an hour probably, but you'll never be able to search the whole gnutella network if you search forever.

[almanzo]

Originally posted by kamnet
As for Sharman, I have no problems with ripping off a company whose profit model is based on software which lets you rip off other companies. The real innovations in the FastTrack network haven't come from Sharman, but from independent developers who have taken the time to hack them in.


That says it. The whole idea behind Sharman seems to be making money without really doing anything, not even updating their software. I mean think about it - the Kazaa developers haven't really done anything for the program in like a year, but they sit on the beach eating peeled grapes in Vanuatu raking in the cash from ad revenues. I couldn't care less if K-Lite hurts Sharman.

On another note though, not looking at how Sharman's profits will be hurt but "will it hurt the actual network", I wonder sometimes if K-Lite could eventually start to hurt the network if more people used it - things like auto search more that will go on forever if you want, hammering the network with requests. It's sure a good option for the user, but when you look at the big picture I can't help but think it could be a negative in the long run.

[matt merch]

i dont care about sharman but i would imagine they are more pissed at the kazaagold scammers who sell a free product

[phalkon30]

If all of the Kazaa lite users went back to KMD, and sharman increased the adware at the same time, I still don't think it would make them have a better chance in court

Kazaa lite may be killing the network in other ways as others have said, it can be very hard on the network by using search more, and not being a supernode by default, if everybody used kazaa lite, the network would be slow as hell, and basicly useless

Also, I have heard that the kazaa network would go down if sharman did, there is a server that tells your client where supernodes are, if you lose that, how do you find them, ping every IP?

[kamnet]

In the long run I think Kazaa Lite / K++ is a definite improvement to the FastTrack Network. Granted you can now do potentially damaging things such as jump supernodes or endlessly query nodes, but I don't see either being abused since it takes some extra effort.

Just by my own observances, the majority of people using p2p fileshare networks are looking for the most popular music and video files, and the majority of the users are also sharing the most popular music at the same time. With the increasing popularity of sig2dat for tracking verified files, I'd say that within the next year it should be even easier to find the most popular stuff, and therefore it will take fewer resources to search and obtain them, which should counterbalance any potential abuse from other tools. And since I don't see the abuse happening in large quantities, makes it even better.

Even if Sharman did go under, and the "ultranode" went under with it, I don't see that as being a problem for too long. How long would it take to whip up a new ultranode and start distributing it with K++, and word going around that you could still continue by just upgrading your client? It obviously didn't hurt FastTrack too much when they took out Morpheus/MusicCity, which carried the majority of the files and users back then. A simple migration tool was written and they took off like a rocket.

[Theinfamousone]

I'd like to see the new releases of Klite have it search for 1, 5, 10, or 20 minutes and then shut off. You can somehow change the option. Because 20 minutes is really all you need. This wouldn't hurt the network that much because it is searching different supernodes every 30 seconds or so. If Sharman could devise a way similar to GUESS that makes search queries take less bandwidth and processing power, they could add multiple searches and have it search forever by default, but until Sharman gets off their laurels, it aint gonna happen.

[moshsandwich]

Whatever happened to Sharman's 'Kazaa Pro' or 'Plus' or whatnot?

[kamnet]

I heard a nasty rumor last year that KazaaGold.com was actually owned by Sharman and they were taking (what is now an old copy of) Kazaa Lite, re-skinning it and selling it. Oddly enough, if it is true, more power to them I say. *lol*