After a year of development the latest version of P2P tool Shareaza has been released. Shareaza is a Windows–based peer-to-peer client which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey Network, and BitTorrent network protocols. It is free, open source, and contains no adware or spyware. If you want to download music and videos from the web this is an excellent tool to use.

Download it here.

Getting started with Shareaza

Here are some helpful links to get you started if you are new to P2P software. The Shareaza website contains a step-by-step tutorial to get you started with Shareaza. You can also view the Shareaza Quick Guide 3.2, an animated guide to the software that runs in your browser (a downloadable version is also available).

Shareaza Firewall Configuration

If you use a router and/or are behind a firewall you will need to configure it to have Shareaza work correctly. You need you have to open only one port for Shareaza – configure port 6346 for both tcp/udp. To find out how to configure your router please visit portforward.com. Shareaza website also contains some troubleshooting information if you are having problems. Once your firewall is configured you can test that it is working correctly by visiting this website.

Shareaza and Windows XP SP2

Windows XP SP2 introduced a limit on the number of simultaneous connections that can be made to the Interent, which unfortunately affects Shareaza’s performance – more info here. To solve the problem you need to download and install the patch available here.

Note – this problem affects all P2P software and not just Shareaza.

If you still can’t connect to the network…

Shareaza Wiki has an article to help you with this. If you need more help the two best places to look are the Shareaza Forums and the Shareaza Wiki.