List of Spyware-free File Sharing Applications
Acquisition
from Wikipedia
A Gnutella-based peer-to-peer and BitTorrent client for Mac OS X. It is based on LimeWire and is a shareware product, priced at $17.99. Acquisition is noted for being one of the most polished peer-to-peer applications available for Mac OS X, making full use of Apple's Cocoa APIs.
Acquisition's use of the GPLed LimeWire core libraries has caused some controversy. The author maintains that Acquisition does not break the terms of the GPL since the graphical user interface and the open-source, modified LimeWire core are actually run as separate processes, communicating via UNIX pipes, pointing to a paragraph in the GPL FAQ that indicates piped communication is a method of separate programs. Critics argue that the two parts of Acquisition (the GUI and the modified LimeWire core) are not really independent (either is useless without the other) and thereby constitute a single work which cannot be relicensed. However, there are several projects that use the AcquisitionCore, proving that the networking core is usable as a separate entity.
Freenet
from Wikipedia
A decentralized censorship-resistant peer-to-peer distributed data store aiming to provide electronic freedom of speech through strong anonymity. Freenet works by pooling the contributed bandwidth and storage space of member computers to allow users to anonymously publish or retrieve various kinds of information. Freenet uses a kind of key based routing similar to a distributed hash table to locate peers' data. Freenet is currently under development, and a version 1.0 has not yet been released. Freenet is considered by many to be fundamentally different from other peer-to-peer networks; it is still somewhat more difficult to use and significantly slower. However, after continued use and activity on the network, nodes become faster and more efficient at fetching data. There is a primitive (not fully distributed) keyword search function in development, but due to the small size of the network several freesites serve as directories listing published freesites. Upon the creation of a new freesite, the author can add a listing to the directory allowing others to discover the freesite. The directory owners also periodically spider or automatically attempt to retrieve the freesites they list. One of the most famous directories is the Freedom Engine, shown opposite. Currently, Freenet cannot be used to create or distribute dynamic content, such as content that utilizes databases and scripting. According to the Freenet Project group, such tradeoffs are expected since Freenet's primary goals are neither ease-of-use nor performance. Unlike other peer-to-peer networks, Freenet is primarily intended to combat censorship and allow people to communicate freely and with near-total anonymity. Freenet can be thought of as a large, potentially lossy, storage device. When you store a file in it, you receive a key which can be used to retrieve the file. When you supply Freenet with a key, it returns the appropriate file (if it is located). The storage space is distributed among all connected nodes on Freenet.
Gnucleus
from Wikipedia
A popular Gnutella and Gnutella2 servent for Windows, released under the GPL license. The primary goals of the project are security and stability. The client is designed to be easy to use without reducing the number of options available. Gnucleus implements a number of features including ultrapeers (high capacity Gnutella nodes which aggregate child nodes to prevent low capacity nodes from creating network bottlenecks), multisource swarming downloads, partial-file sharing, SHA1 file hashing, Tiger tree hashing, proxy server support, as well as support for the Gnutella2 network. The network core, now dubbed GnucDNA, has been separated from the main program and is being used by many other applications such as Morpheus.
Phex
from WikipediaA peer-to-peer file sharing client for the Gnutella network. It is free software and without spyware or adware. Phex is released under the GNU General Public License. Phex is based on Java technology and therefore available for many different systems that offer a J2SE 1.4 runtime environment, such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and others. Phex supports "swarming" downloads, meaning that parts of a file will be downloaded from different peers if available, speeding up the download process. Advanced users are offered fine-grained control over configuration settings.
Shareaza
from WikipediaA free Windows–based peer-to-peer client which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2, EDonkey Network, BitTorrent, FTP and HTTP network protocols and which can handle magnet links, ed2k links, Piolet links, and the now deprecated Gnutella links. It was developed by Michael Stokes. In late 2002, Stokes introduced Gnutella2, a reworked version of Gnutella with many fundamental updates to the protocol, and added support for it to Shareaza. This drew a lot of criticism from other Gnutella developers because Gnutella2 was developed without any outside help or conferral. However, the Gnutella2 network has been doing well so far despite the fact that it was developed privately, and is now supported by Shareaza, MLDonkey, Adagio, Gnucleus, Morpheus, and iMesh among others. Opponents of the name "Gnutella2" refer to it as 'Mike's Protocol', or 'MP' for short. On 1 June 2004, Shareaza 2.0 was released, along with the source code, under the GNU GPL, making it free software. Version 2.1 was released on 19 September 2004, and included many bug fixes including better support for Windows XP Service Pack 2. The latest release was 2.2.1.0. Shareaza is available in 18 languages. Users of Shareaza (along with Azureus and LimeWire) have frequently been targeted in internet scams such as Etomi that demand a "membership fee" for use of the software. A wide-spread version is "Kazaa Lite Pro", which also negatively influences the network.
