Bearshare Vs. Limewire

Limewire

• When Napster was banned in the early years for the 21st century, Limewire quickly took its place as the peer-to-peer network of choice. Limewire comes in two versions: free and pro. The professional version includes additional features such as increased download speed technical support. If you used Napster in its heyday, you'll feel at home with Limewire; search for what you're looking for and double-click to download.
  
  

Bearshare

• Bearshare, in contrast, only has one version---but much of Bearshare's music is not accessible without a monthly subscription. Bearshare brings you the convenience of sharing files on a peer-to-peer network with the cost of a subscription service---that is to say, you pay to legally download content from your fellow file sharers. All the content is legal; most requires a subscription. If paying for a subscription isn't ideal, you can also pay a one-time fee of 99 cents per song, the same rate as both iTunes and Amazon (neither of which use your bandwidth to share songs with others).
  
  

Gnutella

• Limewire is a Gnutella client, which means it uses the Gnutella peer-to-peer network. A number of other programs also use this networking; Limewire users can also download files from users of those programs as well. Much of the content available to downloaders on Limewire is either illegal or questionable in terms of legality. Bear Share used to be part of the Gnutella network, but a court order forced it to become a legal, subscription-based service in 2006.
  
  

Frostwire

• If you want the features of Limewire Pro without having to pay, try Frostwire. Because Limewire is open source, it's perfectly legal to release Limewire Pro in its entirety without others have to pay for it. The result is Frostwire, which is free of charge.
  
  

Comparison

• It's hard to compare Limewire and Bearshare at this point, because they offer completely different services. Limewire is a peer-to-peer network with all the illegal files that entails. Bearshare is a network that is heavily regulated, keeping illegal files out and charging a monthly subscription fee for access to most of its files. Because of this, Bearshare is perhaps better compared to the likes of Real Player and other subscription-based music distributors than to Lime Wire.