| I am sure you have heard about the Napster | | | | identified two unwanted passengers, an adware |
| Free Music Download website. From this website | | | | robot plus another which was a Startup Registry. |
| you could download whichever music you wanted | | | | These were indeed unpleasant and unexpected. I |
| for free. You cannot do that anymore. Don't | | | | was very trusting of the website, which turned |
| despair - there are other sites out there providing | | | | out to be a terrible mistake of mine. It had all the |
| free music downloads and one of these is called | | | | correct "looks" of a GNU open source website |
| Bearshare. | | | | which I allowed to influence me. |
| The Bearshare peer-to-peer software applications | | | | This caught me totally unaware when my |
| promises the same as other programs produced | | | | system's protection stepped in to prevent a |
| out of the GNU/Gnutella stable. It offers the | | | | possible dangerous event. I now feel that |
| promise of free musical downloads. It is a bit | | | | Bearshare and possibly other peer-to-peer sharing |
| harder to get a "free download" of the basic | | | | software applications may have "Trojans" and |
| Bearshare program than others, such as Limewire | | | | other nasties embedded. Using my "leftist" brain I |
| and Frostwire. It promises a surprise you won't | | | | found that I was suspicious of the intentions of |
| like or appreciate; more details follow in a later | | | | say the Record Industry Association of America. |
| paragraph. Limewire was eventually obtained from | | | | What if they were unsatisfied with the impact of |
| a freeware website on the internet and Frostwire | | | | their lawsuit against individuals and Napster; maybe |
| was acquired from the Limewire quite easily. | | | | setting up pseudo free websites with |
| But I am going to talk about Bearshare in this | | | | contaminated software applications, the purpose |
| article. This is my experience: When I went to | | | | of which is to scare people off from sharing files, |
| Bearshare they offered a membership in addition | | | | software, audio, and video. I know what I'm |
| to the basic Bearshare software. I downloaded | | | | writing is totally improvable; it sounds as |
| the software and attempted to install it. The | | | | preposterous as claiming that sharing files on the |
| following experience represents a danger still | | | | internet can harmfully reduce musical CD sales. |
| present upon the internet and especially with | | | | I wonder who would believe that? Anyway, there |
| peer-to-peer applications. | | | | won't be any free music downloads using |
| Upon installing the Bearshare basic software | | | | Bearshare to my computer. The surprises it gave |
| package my antivirus application went crazy! It | | | | me outweigh any promise of no monthly charges. |