[blindp2p] WinMX down:
- From: "brandon : serrebi" <serrebi101@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blindp2p@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 13:08:24 -0700
Late last week, the very popular winMX file sharing program was shut down. In
short, front-code shut the servers down that were responsible for telling users
about the supernodes that were up and running.
The first thing I thought when I read the news was what were blind p2p-ers
going to do? WinMX was a very popular choice for fileSharing especially in the
blind community. Below, I have tried to give you guys some alternatives for the
starved filesharer, saddened by winMX's demmize.
ares
http://www.aresgalaxy.org
In what most people think was in response to a RIAA letter demanding ares to
stop there filesharing program from being downloaded, the developer of ares
open sourced the program. The Ares network is fast, and the interface looks
like kazaa. It doesn't use the inferier UUhash system so downloads are mostly
good quality. With a minimal amount of fakes, and a great community of chat
rooms, winMX refugees should find this as being a good home for them. I give
this a 3.5 out of five for accessibility wise. You will have to use the jaws
cursor or your screenreaders mouse cursor a lot, but the program is open
sourced, so who knows what a developer will do.
shareaza
http://www.shareaza.com
Shareaza is a multinetwork filesharing program connecting to the gnutella,
gnutella2, and edonkey2000 networks. It's strongpoint for blind people IMO is
that it includes a web interface wich, once set up, includes a good selection
of functions, right inside your web-browser. It is also an opensourced
filesharing program, but can be a little tuff to get started with. If you use
the gui, I'd give it a 2. If you set up the web interface, and use it, you can
get bye. MikeW, one of the top devs is trying to make the program more
userfriendly for blind people[he's got jaws 5.1, and is attempting to find out
how to make the program more accessible].
Gnucleus
http://www.gnucleus.com
This is another opensourced client connecting to the gnutella, and gnutella2
networks. Probably the best file sharing program for blind people, it's very
easy to get started downloading to your hearts content. This program deserves a
5.
FilePipe
http://www.filepipe.org
This is another opensourced program connecting to the ares network, gnutella,
fasttrack network [kazaa], and it's own network called openFT. It delivers
incredible results, and isn't that difficult to use. I recommend going to the
view menue and selecting top toolBar and you should be on your way. I give this
program a 4 because of an anoying tooltip issue if you have your pc cursor on a
result in the list, it just shows the info and it's difficult to navigate the
results until you tab the pc cursor onto another control.
I hope this list has helped you guys find something of interest.
Brandon
Other related posts:
