Napster Alternatives

[dragonB]

audiogalaxy can do that(search by bitrate, etc) but it takes an extra click or two for each song, which is rather annoying. Although I haven't used it too much, maybe there's an easier way?
dragonB

[club_med]

Thanks dragonB,
what do you mean with 'an extra click or two' ? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

cm.

[club_med]

So how do I get rid of the spyware in audiogalaxy ?. Any good links explaining how this is done ?.

thanks,
cm.

[GroundZero3]

unistalling the spyware is a piece of cake. just go into your add/remove in the control panel and look for webhancer. done

easy as pie

Jason

[AuraEdge]

Ah! I let adaware do it last time I gave adudiogalaxy a shot, and AG wouldnt start anymore.
Now maybe I can start using it.

And a "duh" for why didnt I think of add/removing Webhancer. :P

[OuTpaTienT]

I just gave Audio Galaxy a try. Talk about cumbersome. And slow. Even with a fast cable connection their web based format is extremely slow.

I'll stick with USENET I guess. I could have downloaded 3 or 4 entire CDs from the newsgroups in the time it took me to get one song from AG.

And just like to good ol Napster days, don't dare logon to AG with a large collection of music...I had half a dozen people leeching from me before I could even find a tune I wanted to download. Oh well, I guess I use it just like I did Napster, only to get that one elusive tune that maybe only one other user has. Otherwise I'll stick to downloading full CDs from USENET.

[club_med]

Hey OuT excuse my stupidity, whats USENET ?.

cm.

[randy48]

USENET=Newsgroups

[club_med]

How does one go about obtaining MP3 through newsgroups ?.

cm.

[OuTpaTienT]

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/

http://www.ibiblio.org/usenet-i/usenet-help.html

http://netmation.com/usenet.htm

As far as reading messages and decoding binaries from the newsgroups, I use Agent. Some people like it, some don't, I do. Find it here: http://www.forteinc.com/agent/index.htm

---

Just for the heck of it I just downloaded a CD (Queensryche-Rage for Order) and timed it. 11 songs at 192kbps, just under 3 minutes, or just over 15 seconds per song. Not bad.

[OuTpaTienT]

And btw, the newsgroups available to you will depend on your ISP. They choose what groups (if any) that are on their news servers.

If your ISP does have news servers for you to access then you check it out. After all, it's part of what you're paying for.

If your ISP does not have news servers then that makes it tough. There are free public servers out there, but then speed becomes a problem. The newsgroups are usually very fast simply because the info is coming right from your ISP to you. When you have to look elsewhere for the news server then you often have the Internet in between you and the news server and that slows things down tremendously.


btw, once in USENET, the place to find mp3s is this group:

alt.binaries.sounds.mp3

and all the sub-groups of it

alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*

for example

alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.complete_cd (is a good one)
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.heavy-metal
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.comedy
etc.

[korgul]

I would not use imesh if I were you. I downloaded it yesterday and been having problems with my PC all day. Even if it does give you the info that you are looking for.

I uninstalled it and some other program that it installed called commonname. Then IE would lock up. I uninstalled both programs and still IE locked up. I tried to get IE5.5 so I could reinstall it. OOOOPPPPS lock up trying to get it. Luckily my VPN to work worked so I could send the install file to myself in an E-mail.

Just a warning.


Korgul

[-tetsujin-]

No no no no. If you're looking for a real napster alternative you have to get winmx (http://www.winmx.com/)

You know the way napster can never truly be shutdown? Anyone can host a napster server. RIA can't track them all and they can't keep them closed either. You can get the binary for opennap(the server program for napster) anywhere. I could start a napster server and host any files and music that I wanted. So napster is actually doing just fine.

Winmx is bit for bit the SAME exact program. It hooks up to opennap servers that host all the stuff that normal napster filters. It IS napster. Honestly. I just found out the other nite. I actually got some of those gnutella proggies and audio galaxy but they blow. Winmx is napster. Get it and love it.

And in case you're wondering it has the same exact features so you can see the bitrate of songs, length, ping to user, chatrooms, hotlist, etc. I repeat Winmx IS napster without the filters.

[club_med]

Yes I know we have been over this before, and, I have also looked at some of the links, but I would like some input from experienced users on the following:

I want to know the bitrate and frequency of the MP3's I want to download, which programs would provide me with this information ?.

I looked at some documentation in the follwoing: Aimster , Audiogalaxy Satellite , audioGnome , BearShare
, Freenet , Hotline , iMesh , WinMX.

Which of the above will give me the info I want?.

Please don't post if you dont know the answere

Thanks,
cm.

[GroundZero3]

read (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/013534.html)

and this... (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/008328.html)

oh yeah this one too (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007744.html)


audiogalaxy seems like the best. you do tho have to unistall the spyware that comes with http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

Jason

[club_med]

As I said before, please, please only post if you have first hand experiences with some program.

Thanks for the links GroundZero3, but not quite what I want to know.

cm.

[GroundZero3]

i used imex, kaaza, and audiogalaxy. imex and kaaza were slow as heck. sure you can get movies and other stuff on there but. but the factor of slowness comes in. im saying that audiogalaxy is your best choice IMHO unistalling the spyware is a piece of cake. just go into your add/remove in the control panel and look for webhancer. done

Jason

[club_med]

Does AudioGalaxy give me info on Bitrate and freq ?

cm.

[Rumpy]

Napigator (http://www.napigator.com) is good too. It's essentially a Napster server browser. You click on a server link and it opens up Napster and connects to the server you chose. It rocks!

[club_med]

Ok well i subscribed to some newsgroups, such as:
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.complete_cd

now the question is how do i extract the mp3's ?.

Im using Outlook Express 5 as my newsreader.
cm.

[jman01pa]

I logged onto the newsgroups usenent sites and and found all kinds of stuff. When I opened up the link, all I get is jibberish. On a few I found attachments but they were useless. What do I do next?

J http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by jman01pa (edited 06-03-2001).]

[club_med]

The above is exactly what I mean, whats the next step ?

Excuse me if these are stupid questions, but I have never done this before and I am still trying to understand it all.

thanks,
cm.

[ablang]

Audiogalaxy is the best, but I don't believe it provides bitrate & freq info before & during downloading. It does have auto-resume though. And as far as I know, all songs are encoded at 44.1 kHz frequency anyway. Bitrate is another story. Why people do it at less than 128k is beyond me.

[-tetsujin-]

Newsgroups are a hassle for just mp3's. I don't know why anyone avoids winmx. It is honestly the perfect napster alternative as it is napster. Audiogalaxy isn't half as good. Someone wanna back me up here? Hey your loss...

[-tetsujin-]

Oh yeah and like I said you get the frequency, bitrates, time length, astrological sign, etc.

WINMX IS NAPSTER WITH A NEW NAME

[club_med]

This is pretty cool, I figured out how to get the MP3 files in the outlook express, all you have to do is select the files and the under 'Message' there's an option 'Combine and Decode' take a few seconds.

But they dont have much of a selection somehow ?.

cm.

[smokin1]

club_med, you may want to try the link Out gave you. Free Agent makes it easy to download all the pieces..just right click on a rar file, and choose combine and decode..it does it all for you. In Outlook, you have to click on each piece holding down the shift key, then right click and combine..a bit cumbersome..IMHO

[OuTpaTienT]

Yeah, but some of us have never really liked Napster in the first place. It always struck me as a bunch of amatuers trading poor quality music files, no offense it's just that's the impression I got after using it for a few months. I finally gave up on it all together. I would still use it to find an occasional song or whenever I wanted to get something that was current pop, but as far as seeking to build a music library &/or burn to CD, I found Napster more trouble than it's worth.

And the newsgroups are no trouble at all once you know what you're doing. Last night I downloaded 1.1GB in just a few hours of browsing the newsgroups, how long would that have taken on any Napster-ish program?

CM, sorry but I'm not familiar in the slightest with Outlook Express or how it handles decoding binary messages. Using Agent all I have to do is highlight the message(s) and click a button for "save attachments".

I've never liked (or quite understood) how Outlook handles the newsgroups. If you wanna see how Agent does it, look here. (http://members.home.net/0utpatient/agent101.jpg)

[-tetsujin-]

Oh yeah part 2.

Winmx lets you resume your downloads.

[club_med]

thanks OuT and -tetsujin-

I will look into both agent and winmx.

and thanks everyone else too http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
cm.

[greenlion]

club_med, there are lots of other sub categories - try them. And hundreds of of mp3s are being posted anytime. As Outpatient have said, Newsgroups is not the way if you're only hunting for some specific songs. It is more for collectors who want to collect albums with songs of same rip and quality.

All of the thousands of songs I downloaded from there were of high quality except for those rare songs that were ripped from vinyl, but they came with disclaimers as vinyl ripped anyway.

[greenlion]

Also the songs posted at newsgroups have bitrates and frequency info with them(and they are usually of higher bitrates).Unlike Napster, there is a learning curve in using the newsgroups but once you get the hang of it, its easy as pie.

The best freeware newsreader out there is FreeAgent in my opinion.

[club_med]

Ok I tried winmx and the newsgroups, and here is my opinion:

<u>winmx:</u>

pros:
nice layout
simple and easy to use
napster-like functioning
resume function

cons:
you have to make it ping the results everytime
you can't chose a max or min on results
seems unreliable, like it lagged or something, it would seem to stop responding.

<u>newsgroups:</u>

pros:
**** fast
easy to use once you learn and get the hang of it

cons:
obviously no search functions (in napster terms)
limited selection (personal opinion)
not made for hunters of something specific

<u>conclusion:</u>
for me it will have be a yearning for something as simple and quick as napster, and a combination of both winmx and newsgroups, since im a hunter rather than collector.

cm.

[This message has been edited by club_med (edited 06-04-2001).]

[smartxtai]

use morpheus. i love that program, its just like napster, but better. faster seek time and yes itdoes tell you what the bitrate is, thename of song, everything just like napster, BUT BETTER. god i hated napster cuz it was always so slow. thing that makes morpheus better is it only shows people who havs dsl or better connections, that way, u can download from them fast. go to &lt;www.musiccity.com&gt;. and download morpheus.

[club_med]

Any Spyware issues with Morpheus ?.

cm.

[smartxtai]

spyware issues, don't even know what that is. all i know is that its up, its working, and it doesn't filter any songs unlike napster.

[MiKe85]

Right now i am using Morpheus

[kite]

club, if you liked napster then you will like this it uses napster's program and looks and acts the same way as napster used to and if you still have napster on your computer that is the best its called napigator it is a add on to napster you can pick which sever you want to get on and it tells you how many files that sever is shareing if you want to download this go to download.com and search for napigator and just download it and if you still have napster on your computer then you don't need to download anything else.

Kite