BearShare is not worth the worry and hassle of possible spyware or adware installed on your machine. Currently, you have the option of not installing OnFlow, SaveNow and New.net, but included in version 2.2.4 is an integrated web browser and who knows what information it is collecting.

The truth of it is, you don't know what information BearShare is "sharing about you" on the GNUtella network or elsewhere while using it. Wake up, people. BearShare is NOT Gnutella. Use another GNUtella client and do NOT support BearShare, regardless of its usability.

BearShare is a user-friendly GNUtella client, but it is NOT privacy friendly. User beware.

Open source is the only way to go. With the RIAA and others out there I don't want to take a chance. If it's not open source, don't run it!

The integrated web browser isn't collecting any information. It's just loading http://bearshare.vstoremusic.com/ , which is an e-commerce store provided by http://www.v**********/

A lot of programs have integrated web browsers nowadays, including Napster.

"A lot of programs have integrated web browsers nowadays, including Napster."

The only difference is after I run BearShare and load up Ad-Aware 4.6, it always detects cookies from it. I know cookies can be anything, but that's my point.

Yes, but the cookie is set by *.vstoremusic.com so only Vstore has access to it.

Vinnie Falco's (the creator of Bearshare) attitude recently is the reason that have uninstalled Bearshare from my box and have
moved to Gnucleus. I have always been disturbed by the spyware bundling, but put up with it because I thought Bearshare was the best servent available. Then I found out about the encrypted message packets that Bearshare sends out and that disturbed me more. I have never heard a pausible explanation for these encrypted messages from Vinnie to this date.

Finally, within the past week, Vinnie has posted several messages on the Bearshare forums which include vitriolic
comments about folks who may have questiond his judgement in using the spyware and has threatened to shut down the Adware forum on Bearshare.net. He has also been censoring posts which are critical of Bearshare. That was enough for me.

I decided to try a couple of servents that I had never tried to find an alternative to Bearshare and I stumbled upon Gnucleus. Let me tell you folks, Gnucleus is as good, if not better than Bearshare. In many ways it IS better than Bearshare. It is more stable, seems to return more search results which are better organized, and the download resume features are a lot more
intuitve. But best of all, there is NO SPYWARE, it sends no encrypted packets, and is OPEN SOURCE. I uninstalled Bearshare and I'm not looking back. Gnucleus is serving all my Gnutella needs without all the hassle and worry associated with Bearshare. I'd urge anyone who has doubts or privacy concerns about Bearshare to check it out.

Hope this helps...

>"Finally, within the past week, Vinnie has posted several
>messages on the Bearshare forums which include vitriolic
>comments about folks who may have questiond his judgement
>in using the spyware and has threatened to shut down the
>Adware forum on Bearshare.net."

FFF**** you, bodhi


>He has also been censoring posts which are critical of
>Bearshare. That was enough for me.

Come back and post on BearShare.Net, so I can delete your sorry a$$ again.

Would you want software created by someone with this type of attitude on *YOUR* machine? How could you possibly trust it?

I rest my case.

Bodhi, I'm completely behind you 100%

BearShare and its creators are not to be trusted on this global network.

What if Vinnie reads a post he doesn't like or feels that public opinion about his servant is declining and decides to maliciously implement actual spyware that sends personal information about the user back to him, or spreads it throughout the network? What is stopping him from doing this? It might not be happening now, but it could with something as popular as BearShare that is often toted as the next replacement for Napster.

I think there needs to be more peer-to-peer servant policing on this peer-to-peer network. Possibly implement some sort of host blocking according to what servant the client uses. I know it seems harsh, but who should we be protecting? An overbearing Gnutella servant author or a hapless user who doesn't know any better?