Best Limewire alternatives - file sharing, P2P, BitTorrent

With the loss of Limewire, many of you have been asking us for alternatives to the once popular file sharing application. With the like of BitTorrent, Ares and eMule around, there's plenty of choice.

The success of any file sharing application is the number of users/sharers. If there are no one sharing files then there is no point in the software existing. Limewire had a great culture where users learnt that not only should you download files but you should share those files with others.

As everyone who used Limewire knows, you could search for practically anything from music and movies to applications and ebooks. These file sharing applications below offer the same level of file sharing as Limewire with the added bonus that you aren't going to disappear any time soon!!

Limewire alternatives

1. uTorrent

The free client application that uses the BitTorrent file sharing protocol. uTorrent is only a tiny install but comes with the power of a steam train and flexibility of Bruce Lee. Millions of people are sharing torrent files globally, so finding those files you were after is pretty easy.

Originally developed back in 2005, the software has always been freeware and regular updates are always available. Latest build is 2.2 (Nov 2010).

uTorrent

2. eMule

A peer to peer file sharing application similar in many ways to Limewire. eMule is powered by the eDonkey network and Kad networks. Not only is eMule available for free but with 550 million downloads, it's the most popular download on the SourceForge website.

If that many people are using it, then you can be sure that it's a pretty decent file sharing app can't you!? Well that number of people using eMule, you can even find those hard to find files that never usually crop up on P2P networks.

eMule

3. Ares Galaxy

Another major player in the P2P file sharing market. Areas was the beast that took over from the hugely popular Napster application from 2001. It's the perfect software for finding and downloading MP3 music files. The software is available from the SourceForge website.

Areas runs on its own network (since it moved away from the Gnutella network). Ares also has the advantage that it works on restricted networks such as universities and schools.

Ares Galaxy