THOUGHTS: BearShare 5 (Free Peers, Inc) - a survivor

[andrewwan1980]

BearShare was my favourate P2P file-sharing program back in 1999-onwards and during the version 5 days. When Free Peers, Inc developed BearShare it was good. Now MusicLab, LLC bought over it and turned it into Malware infested Napster-like pay service. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BearShare

So currently technutopia is the last surviving Free Peers, Inc BearShare version 5 series support place. It kinda reminds me of what happened to KaZaa/Lite (whereas KaZaa was shutdown). KaZaa gradually died over the years - even though KaZaa peeked the most popular in the Gnutella days.

What does everyone think? Is BearShare 5 surviving? If so, how is it doing/coping?

[MoreBandwidthPls]

You are asking as if you don't use it. Try it - there are still a significant number of users on the Gnutella backbone.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by andrewwan1980

BearShare was my favourate P2P file-sharing program back in 1999-onwards

I think it's amazing you used BearShare before it was even created. hehe.

A lot of people are still using it, and Gnutella in general. Go for it.

[malvachat]

Well I've tried nearly every file share program out there.
I find the bear still one of the best.(The version from here of course)Of course the support you get if you do have problems helps.
I don't use it so much nowadays but it's there if I need it.
I don't know any way of knowing how many still use it.
we all do on here I think.

[andrewwan1980]

I did try the versions from here last time and couldn't get connected. Maybe I need to wait longer (like Gnucleus to find ultrapeers). But I gave up.

I wouldn't mind trying it again sometime. Yes my preferred network is Gnutella. Doesn't matter which client. I prefer to help & support the smaller named Gnutella-clients (eg. Gnucleus, Phex, FrostWire, etc).

Shareaza, BearShare, LimeWire are big names now (well BearShare was big).


Last time I asked in official BearShare forums (forums gone after BearShare bought over from iMesh)... was whether it supported Unicode. I think they said no.

Shame....

[Kilika_5200]

The old ver 5 BS relied heavily on the heartbeat and bootstrap servers to get an initial connection going - both of which are dead now. The ver 5 clients will work great once you get connected though.

Personally, I've abandoned ship and gone to FrostWire (mostly the same thing as LimeWire) as BS 5 was getting old and rusty, and I was tired of trying to make it work on my newer computers...

[MoreBandwidthPls]

The bootstrap server is not necessary - it is filtered on a lot of systems and firewalls anyway to prevent the RIAA from gathering stats on BearShare users.

From the old help files:

Q: What is the 'Heartbeat'?
A: BearShare uses a unique method of collecting statistics such as the size of the network, the number of files shared, etc. A single computer called the 'Heartbeat Server' (HBS) sends a 'heartbeat' which spreads out into the network like a radar ping. When the heartbeat can travel no further it is bounced back along the same path but as it returns each servent adds it's statistics to the heartbeat. Eventually the heartbeat will return to the point of origin, the HBS, as a single message containing all statistics. The statistics are recorded here and included in the next heartbeat message so each BearShare servent can display relevant statistics to you.

If the HBS is disconnected or experiencing other problems (it happens occasionally) then the heartbeat message isn't refreshed and you may not see any horizon statistics in BearShare. This does not adversely affect BearShare's ability to find and download files.

Q: What is a host cache?
A: A host cache is a program which hands out IP addresses to gnutella clients. When a gnutella client is started it needs to find some other gnutella clients in order to connect to the network. The host cache provides those IP's. The hostcache is usually the first place you connect to when launching BearShare. Once you have received some addresses from the host cache then you attempt to connect to those addresses. The only reason to communicate with the host cache after that would be if all the IP addresses you had were not working and you needed some more IP addresses to try.

Wasn't there a fairly recent connect table posted somewhere on these forums to bypass this very issue? Once you have at least one Gnutella connection, you are good to go!

BearShare 5 continues to live, and will probably do so for some significant time to come, despite the desperate efforts of some.

[Kilika_5200]

*nods* that's right MBP... I was referring to the initial cold startup from a fresh install. As for those connect tables, I don't know...

I used to bootstrap BearShare by running (Lime/Frost)Wire and then manually connecting BS to localhost... A lot of trouble to get connected, but it certainly works.

[Brian]

Starting January 1st all staff MUST be a BearShare 5 user.












































j/k

[Kilika_5200]

Originally Posted by Brian

Starting January 1st all staff MUST be a BearShare 5 user.

I thought you were serious there for a moment... my response was going to be 'sure, I use it... once in a blue moon, inside a VirtualPC running Win2k'

Lord knows it doesn't like Vista now... let alone when I rebuild and switch to Vista x64

[limefan913]

Originally Posted by Brian

Starting January 1st all staff MUST be a BearShare 5 user.

Ha. Ha.

There's a reason I haven't given BearShare support in a long time. I don't remember what the program looks like! (barely stretching the truth there...).