Limewire, one of the world’s most popular peer-to-peer filesharing applications, has received a lawsuit from the RIAA, who are demanding $115 million in damages, claiming the application promotes the infringement of copyright. Similar applications like Grokster and Kazaa have been forced to go legal and speculation goes as to when Limewire will have to buckle and pay up. The existence of the popular P2P application is not under threat, but if you haven’t given it a try yet, here’s just what makes it a standout program.

In terms of file sharing, Limewire is the cream of the crop, offering the essential peer-to- peer tools in what is probably the friendliest interface of applications in its class. Beginners will appreciate the search bar, which allows you to select the type of file you’re looking for, video, image, audio, or program. Limewire has a “what’s new” button to check out what popular files users have recently exchanged. We also enjoyed the direct connect option. If you know the IP address of one of your friends, type it in the box and Limewire will browse that user’s files. This is a quick way of sharing files with someone else and can come in handy when working on a project and exchanging documents. The only little snag we have with direct connect is that it doesn’t let you enter the username, much simpler than looking for your friend’s IP address.

Downloading with Limewire is very intuitive. After you’ve searched and found the file you are looking for, double-click on it to start the downloading process. The speed of your download depends firstly on the quality of your connection (broadband is a minimum), if you’ve correctly opened your router’s ports and whether you’re downloading a popular file or not. We would like to point out the effort that Limewire takes to make itself accessible to beginners. Not only does a tip pop up every time you launch the application, the help option also leads you to Limewire’s support centre, FAQs and a forum to get in contact with other users.

The lawsuit carried out by the RIAA is all the more surprising because of the measures Limewire takes to keep you in the realms of legality. If you decide to download Limewire from its website, you will first have to agree you will not use it for copyright infringement. When you’re configuring the application, you can set content filters, to avoid downloading files that copyright owners do not want you to share. To avoid embarrassing situations, make sure you tick the “block adult content” box, which will filter out any pornographic files from your searches.

The best way of checking the quality of the audio or video you’re downloading is via Limewire’s mini player. It’s fairly basic and to par with the players you find in similar filesharing applications, but we appreciated the way it was integrated in the program.

If there’s one thing that we’re still expecting from the Limewire team, it’s that it finally decides to jump on the BitTorrent bandwagon. Torrents are the way forward when it comes to peer to peer file sharing because of the speed, the security and freshness of downloads. Large files like movies or complete seasons of TV series are much easier to download via BitTorrent. We were also annoyed by the “buy the PRO version” window that popped up every time we started Limewire.

For its wealth of possibilities and huge base of users, (more than 4 million simultaneously on the Gnutella network) we encourage you to give Limewire a test drive. Because of the controversial nature of the application, you should always make sure that you aren’t using Limewire for illegal activities like copyright infringement. However don’t be scared off by the legality issue. Limewire, like most P2P applications is one of the most exciting possibilities that the internet gives us. It would be a shame not to give it a try. You should also check out Frostwire, the not-for-profit project of the Limewire development team.

Download LimeWire 4.18.8 in Softonic

If you're a fan of shows like Prison Break, My Name is Earl, Family Guy and The Simpsons then Torrent Episode Downloader could become your new best friend. The app is great for ensuring that you never miss an episode of your favourite programmes, without you having to worry about remembering to record it. Thanks to the unique way it combines RSS and torrent technology, ted lets you subscribe to different channels and will automatically download new episodes when they come out.

There are some nice features within the program to help ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. These include the ability to add your own shows to ted, preset popular shows, and keywords to help you filter out fake versions. Although there were a few programmes we couldn't find on there it's still a great way to grab the top shows as soon as they come out.

Download Torrent Episode Downloader 0.95 in Softonic

Transmission is currently the best torrent client on Mac thanks to a beautiful interface and a simple set of intuitive features.

This new version brings many more improvements to an already solid release. You can set different priority levels for torrents and establish stall limit times. The speed limit mode, represented by a turtle icon at the bottom of the interface, is extremely useful if you're looking to control the amount of bandwidth you use for uploads and downloads.

Transmission has consistently improved over time, offering many more options to view your torrents. You can now filter your torrent list according to downloading, seeding, or paused. The client can also organize transfers by queue order, date added, name, process. Transmission also allows you to label, filter and sort torrents by groups and total activity. You can also encrypt your torrent activity in case you want it to stay private.

We really like the new interface, which blends in perfectly to the new Mac OS X Leopard. Transmission manages to display all the essential information without actually seeming crowded, which is no easy feat. The only little nag we'd have with it is that it doesn't offer as many advanced statistics as you'd find in Azureus.

Despite no advanced statistics, Transmission is a beautiful and incredibly intuitive torrent client for Mac.

Download Transmission 1.34 in Softonic

By now everyone who’s ever used a computer surely knows about Peer to Peer file sharing and the controversy it’s stirred up since the days when Napster rocked the music industry. Although it’s still illegal and you run the risk of being taken to court if you’re caught with substantial copyrighted material, there are still plenty of file sharing networks and clients you can use to obtain free music, video and files if you were so inclined.

Using the eDonkey network, aMule stands out from most of its rival P2P clients in the fact that it is open source. The great thing about this is that you’re free of pesky spyware and adware, leaving you free to get on with your downloading in peace. What’s more, the program doesn’t rely on one central server like many older clients. By using a multitude of different servers, the network is virtually impossible to shut down, and proves very robust and secure.

aMule is a cinch to use thanks to the simple layout of the user interface. This doesn’t mean it lacks depth though, and its features are some of the most advanced we’ve seen in a P2P client. For instance, you can view all manner of information on machines you’re downloading from, call up charts outlining downloading stats and check download status through an advanced progress bar.

The fact that aMule uses a large network of servers means the search results are abundant, but there’s one major annoyance with the client – it’s very slow at downloading files. This is largely because of the way it handles download priority, which takes into account the number of servers you’re connected to, the connection speed, and size of the file. It also relies heavily on a ‘credit scoring’ system, whereby people who use the service a lot are rewarded with faster downloads. While some may champion this as being in the true spirit of file sharing, the system makes it awfully frustrating for new users who are penalized with ultra slow downloads.

Having said this, it’s not difficult to see why aMule has become the most popular P2P app, and if you’re prepared to break the law and download music over a network it makes for the perfect accomplice.

Download aMule 2.2.2 in Softonic

When it comes to P2P file sharing, eMule usually wins hands down but UseNeXT is an interesting, slightly more sophisticated offering which has a lot to offer.

For starters, depending on your connection, it can be remarkably quick. You can download at speeds of up to 25 Mbps with DSL/Cable and it�s pretty constant rather than the fluctuations you often get with such services. The network also prides itself on security over it's rivals such as Limewire and eMule - with ISPs continually cracking down on users, UseNeXT promises users far more anonymity than most.

The Usenet archives are supposedly some of the biggest in the world - more than 300 Terabytes of data available at all times and they claim that around 2,000 Gigabytes of new files are added daily. The problem in the past was that UseNeXT used to be a very complicated affair that only tech geeks can handle. However, nowadays, it's been simplified to such an extent that eMule, Limewire and other P2P users will feel more than comfortable with it.

While it can't possibly hope to compete with the reach and depth of the major P2P networks, UseNeXT offers an impressive selection with some super fast downloads.

Download UseNeXT 4.81 in Softonic

ShakesPeer is a peer to peer (P2P) which lets you connect to the lesser known Direct Connect network. One of the advantages of using it is that, although there will probably be less files around than on more popular networks, you should tend to find better quality and a true community. You generally use ports 411, 412 and 413 with Direct Connect, so make sure does ports are free.

ShakesPeer offers a really easy to use interface. The search box in ShakesPeer lets you select files by type and saves all your results on the left panel. ShakesPeer also lists all your friends, bookmarks and downloads. Connecting to a hub is very easy.

I was only really disappointed with the advanced search feature, which to be honest isn't really advanced. All it really does is allow you to specify files by size.

ShakesPeer is a P2P client that gives you access to the lesser known Direct Connect network.

Download ShakesPeer 0.9.8 in Softonic

SoulSeek may not be as popular nowadays as it used to be a few years, but it still remains an excellent way of exchanging music with other users. SolarSeek is a friendly Soulseek client built specifically for Mac.

If this is your first time using SoulSeek, you should appreciate the SolarSeek interface. It makes it easy to connect to SoulSeek, search for tracks, via the search box on the top left, and view all your uploads and downloads.

An important part of SoulSeek is its own community. SolarSeek lists your friends, chat rooms and chats, so you can engage with other users and discuss about or give suggestions on music and artists that you enjoy. I have to admit you can easily spend hours just talking about music and you'll find pretty passionate people in the different chat rooms.

Like with other peer to peer apps, you'll have to open up ports and select directories to upload and download files. Luckily, the first time you start up SolarSeek, the application will allow you to take care of these.

SolarSeek has not been updated for a while, however going on the developer's site, you'll see that the team is hard at work on version 1.0, which hopefully should include lots of new features. We also hope it will get rid of the instability, all too common in the current version.

Although it's a little unstable, SolarSeek offers an intuitive interface by which to connect to the SoulSeek network.

Download SolarSeek 0.95.3 in Softonic

iSwipe aims to be an all encompassing file search and download tool. The application allows you to search for anything from software to music of movies in 12 different protocols like Carracho, OpenNap, Gnutella, iTunes or Bittorrent. Around 795 million files available according to iSwipe.

You can also search the web, however for that you'll need a SeeqPod account. Although there are many services to choose from, iSwipe is limited by the fact that you can't add new services or that some of they are now obsolete. If you click on the 'Details' tab, you'll be able to see the servers, amount of users, files and data for each servers, a good way to choose the best one.

iSwipe offers a MusicBrowser and AutoSearch sections, however, because there are no explanations, we couldn't really see how these were good to be very different from the 'Search' function.

Good for multi protocol search, however I'd stick to your best P2P client, which is probably more effective than iSwipe.

Download iSwipe 1.7.11 in Softonic

Frostwire is a hidden gem among Peer to Peer (P2P) applications. Built on the Limewire code but free of any advertising, Frostwire is one of the most accessible and reliable P2P applications you will find, and it doesn’t annoy you with pop ups or ads asking you to buy stuff.

The simple search bar, divided by category, makes it a breeze to browse for a file, whether it is a video, image, audio, or program. Frostwire has a “what’s new” button to check out what popular files users have recently exchanged. We also enjoyed the direct connect option. If you know the IP address of one of your friends, type it in the box and Frostwire will browse that user’s files. This is a quick way of sharing files with someone else. It can come in handy when working on a project and exchanging documents. The only little snag we have with direct connect is that it doesn’t let you enter the username, much simpler than looking for your friend’s IP address.

Downloading with Frostwire is very intuitive. After you’ve searched and found the file you are looking for, double-click on it to start the downloading process. The speed of your download depends firstly on the quality of your connection (broadband is a minimum), if you’ve correctly opened your router’s ports and whether you’re downloading a popular file or not. When you’re configuring the application, you can set content filters, to avoid downloading copyright protected material, adult content or Windows Media files.

The best way to check the quality of the audio or video you’re downloading is via Frostwire’s media player. Well integrated into the client it gives you an immediate preview or your file.

Frostwire is a pure version of Limewire, built as a not-for-profit project, and its developers claim it will never support DRM or any type of advertising. With the threatening cloud of lawsuits gobbling up P2P clients one at a time and forcing them to go legit, Frostwire’s future is in the balance. But the ad-free P2P client is still on its feet, and that very fact added to its reliability make it one of the most attractive of the remaining P2P clients.

Download FrostWire 4.17.0 in Softonic

If you're not satisfied with your Torrent client and feel that you could squeeze some extra mileage out of your connection, then you should give BitTyrant a go.

BitTyrant uses a different type of torrent protocol that's compatible with BitTorrent and is optimized for fast download performance. Now, the big selling point of this client is speed although this cannot be guaranteed depending on what type of connection you have, how many seeds a torrent has etc.

However, the developers claim that it's up to three times quicker than Azureus and much fairer in the way it rewards uploaders rather than downloaders. In terms of interface however, there's little difference - BitTyrant looks exactly like Azureus although there are a few optional features to display statistics relevant to BitTyrant's operation. There is however an underlying difference between it and other clients. BitTyrant differs in its selection of which peers to unchoke and send rates to unchoked peers. In this way, it theoretically means that bandwidth speeds are used more efficiently and fairly although as I say, much will depend on your own connection and ISP provider.

If you're happy with Azureus then there's no big reason to change to BitTyrant but if you've been experiencing declining download speeds or connection issues, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Download BitTyrant 1.1.1 in Softonic

Azureus is a bittorrent client which lets file-hungry downloaders share large files in an organized and highly efficient way. The majority of users may be more familiar with the well known eMule, and although the system it uses results in a more user-friendly experience, the engine used by Azureus can offer some alternative and vastly superior performance enhancements.

The primary advantage of using a bittorrent client is the sheer speed at which files can be downloaded. Performance-wise, Azureus outstrips all the competition but of course, this comes at a price. The most widely discussed flaw of this software is the huge impact it has on your system's resources. The fact that it has been written in Java has been quoted as the source for its excess of memory usage, and in its attempt to optimize performance it squeezes every bit of bandwidth into getting files to download faster, making browsing the web a painfully slow experience.

There is a wide selection of bittorrent clients available to choose from, so what makes Azureus stand out from the crowd? First of all, it's an open source project, which not only means that it's free to download but that there is a large community of programmers, designers and users who are continually testing and improving upon the latest release. In fact, the Azureus project community is so healthy that it recently won the Sourceforge Community Choice Awards for the "Best Overall" category, as voted by the users.

To appeal to such a large user-base Azureus is packed with a great number of options, which can be used to customize precisely how the software runs. There are also comprehensive statistics about every file you download, with the all important "Estimated Time of Arrival" and the share ratio, which tells you how much of a particular file you have uploaded or "given back" to the community. Incidentally, in the perfect P2P community, every file should have a share ratio of two. (In other words, for each file you download, two users download it from you).

What makes a bittorrent client different to a P2P client such as eMule, is that you must download a reference file, or torrent, from the Net, and open it in the client, as opposed to searching directly for the file within the software. A downside to this is that the reference files may linger on after the file they refer to has been removed from your computer. With that in mind, torrent files often come with a health rating, judged by how many sources there are for that file. Very often, the file will be available to be downloaded very quickly when it is first released but within a few weeks or months, will become either very slow or unavailable.

Azureus is probably our favourite file sharing client but we prefer to use it alongside eMule as they both perform well under different circumstances. If you want to convert your Mac in to a download factory then Azureus is what you need, but if you prefer an easy life and aren't put off by the long waits, then stick with eMule.

Download Azureus (Vuze) 3.1.0.0 in Softonic

Acquisition is a P2P client for both the Gnutella and BitTorrent networks. Its central point is the search box, from which you'll find what you are looking for.

I quite like Acquisition's interface, with its attention to detail and good organization. The left side displays your list of search results while the top part divides them in file type, artist and album. You can also look through different locations where your results can be found, such as Flickr, iTunes or Google.

Acquisition's search tool is fast and displays suggestions as you type, however if you don't have Acquisition Pro, some of your requests will be randomly ignored. You can create and add filters to display less and more precise results. Acquisition includes presets for you to start with.

Once you've gotten some downloads started, you'll see you can follow their progress and handle them individually. Acquisition displays individual speed for each file and lets you preview them before they are completed. When your download is done you can tell Acquisition to send it directly to your iTunes library, iPod or iPhone.

The Gnutella network isn't as reliable as it was a few years back, however you'll still find a wide amount of results from Bittorrent in Acquisition.

Despite the limitations of the free version, Acquisition is a good P2P client with an effective search tool and great interface.

Download Acquisition 2.0.209 in Softonic

The torrent phenomenon is one of the most hyped about in the world of technology among Peer to Peer (P2P) users. It consists of sharing large files, like movies, software, or games anonymously and quickly with other peers. The file you want to download is cut up into small segments shared by users, creating what is called a swarm, and does not go through a central server, significantly reducing the bulk of file transfers, The Bittorrent client is actually the first P2P application to use this technology and became immensely popular when it was released. Torrents are considered by online users as a great way to download recently released movies or tv shows.

Thanks to a straightforward, uncluttered interface Bittorrent appears as a friendly torrent client that beginners will feel comfortable with. Once you’ve found the torrent you want, download it to your Mac, open it up inside Bittorrent and let the client do its job. The speed at which you download will depend on the number of seeds, that is people who have the complete file and are sharing it. The more seeds there are the quicker files will download.

You can set multiple torrent downloads and the downloading speed is fairly quick. It’s easy to configure the client and we suggest choosing the right port and setting upload and download rate limits to avoid hogging your bandwidth. It’s also good to set your downloads by priority to monitor more precisely how your torrents are doing.

Compared to the exhaustive Azureus, Bittorrent is very simplistic. It doesn’t provide half as many statistics and doesn’t let you customize the interface. Integrating a search box is a great idea, but it limits searches to the bittorrent website, not considered the most thorough source by torrent aficionados.

If you’re a newbie to the torrent world, Bittorrent is a good bet. It’s safe, stable and sharp. Associated with the huge database of legal torrents that is the bittorrent website, it makes for a very rich P2P experience. Advanced users will probably frown upon its lack of options but others should give it a try.

Download BitTorrent 4.72.2 in Softonic

Cabos may not be as famous as Limewire or eMule but it remains a very good peer to peer file sharing client.

In fact, users of Limewire will immediately find the similarities in Cabos' interface. Your network, downloads and uploads are easily accessible from the menu on the left. Elements in these sections will be displayed in a list in the center of the interface. The search box on the top left is the best way to look for content, and given that Cabos makes use of Gnutella, the third biggest peer to peer network, you're guaranteed to find what you're looking for. Thanks to iTunes integration, you can search for tracks or videos stored in Apple's media player directly from Cabos.

The peer to peer client may not have any advanced features and you may not always benefit from ultrafast connection speeds, however it remains a very simple to use P2P application. What worries us though is that the client has not been updated for a while, and could be in need of some improvements.

Cabos is an easy to use P2P client which makes use of the third biggest peer to peer network, Gnutella.

Download Cabos 0.7.9 in Softonic

Tomato Torrent is a simple torrent client that uses up little memory.

The application is built on the original Bittorrent client, making it very stable, and offers a very similar interface. It also uses up very little memory, meaning that you can easily have it running in the background and still launch other applications. However, obviously, avoid having too many torrents connected if you don't want to use up all your bandwidth.

Tomato Torrent includes a quick resume function to launch downloads that had been put on pause. You can also set them to automatically stop at a certain seed ratio and set your own upload rate. Tomato Torrent also lets you easily create your own tracker, if you're interested in distributing your torrents.

Tomato Torrents supports AppleScripts, and if you know your way around them, you can really create your own customized torrent client.

Even though it does offer many features, it probably lacks all the advanced statistics you get in Azureus or the smart features of Tomato Torrent.

All in all though, Tomato Torrent makes for a very good, easy to use and stable torrent client for Mac.

Download Tomato Torrent 1.5.1 in Softonic

If you're one of the few people still running Mac OS 9, also known as Classic, then you should really update to OS X, as less and less applications still run on Classic these days. Fortunately for you, a supported version of LimeWire is still available.

You'll find this version of LimeWire very easy to use and full of help. The interface itself makes it easy to connect to servers and monitor your different downloads. Of course, it will look very outdated compared to the more recent version of LimeWire and will probably not perform as well, however you'll probably already be accustomed to this in Mac OS 9.

If you open up the preferences you'll see you can adjust a number of parameters, like setting bandwidth speed and limits on downloads and uploads, selecting your port or deciding where to save downloads or what files to share.

LimeWire also includes basic playback functions to preview your download and make sure it's what you were searching.

If you're still running Mac OS 9 and are into peer-to-peer (p2p) downloading, then you should install the friendly and easy-to-use LimeWire.

Download LimeWire for Mac OS Classic 4.0 in Softonic

Coming from the developer of the excellent Acquisition search tool, we're bound to expect a top notch program. The Xtorrent client does not disappoint.

This Bittorrent client offers a powerful search tool, reminiscent of Acquisition, and a great way of organizing your different downloads. These will be separated by type (image, video, audio) and can be stored in different groups. Once a file is downloaded you can have Xtorrent automatically store it somewhere, such as place audio files in iTunes.

Torrents can be managed individually and Xtorrent offers both a progress bar and bottom information window to keep you updated on all the stats relating to the torrent.

I enjoyed the torrentcast feature, which is ideal to download new episodes of a file being released regularly.

If there's one thing that's missing from Xtorrent, it's the ability to create your own trackers, a feature now available in most torrent clients. I also felt the interface could get a little crowded with many downloads running.

Overall though, Xtorrent is a clever torrent client with a great search tool and a cool torrentcast feature.

Download Xtorrent 1.1 (v53) in Softonic

Sharing files across your local network just got easier! Swift Share allows the easy creation of both Windows and Macintosh share points. Take control of Mac OS X's built-in file servers and tweak them to perfection.

Share points are points across the network at which remote users can access your files. Mac OS X gives you one default share point: your home directory. However, if you're anywhere but home, you won't want to be giving everyone access to your entire home directory! Using Swift Share, choose only which folders you share and which users have access.

The power of Swift Share doesn't end at its ability to manage your share points. It also offers unique flexibility to manage users and groups on your system. For instance, create a new group of sharing-only users to access a "Games" folder on your computer.

Swift Share also gives you more than just start and stop controls for the powerful file servers built-in to Mac OS X. Customize nearly one hundred aspects of the Apple and Windows file servers. From user limits, guest permissions, and logging to workgroups, authorization modes, and greetings!

Download Swift Share 1.0.4 in Softonic

TVShows is a Mac OS X application that automatically downloads your favorite shows. You don't need anymore to manually download torrent files, TVShows does it for you. Manage your subscriptions and preferences from within the TVShows application, and TVShows takes care of the rest: a background process is automatically launched at a regular interval to check for new episodes.

Download TVShows 0.3.4 in Softonic

Send files to anyone (It doesn't matter if they use QuickShareIt or not, PC, Mac or Linux, if they can browse websites, they can download your file.) QuickShareIt is an excellent application if you need to transfer files with your friends or coworkers. It has the following features:

• Easily upload any type of file
• Quicker and more convienent than ImageShack, YouSendIt or anything else!
• Unlimited bandwidth (serve it to the world!)
• Drag & drop hundreds of files (Multiple files or folders automatically get zipped before they're uploaded)
• Get the URL to your file FAST! (QuickShareIt automatically copies the URL to your clipboard)
• Now with Growl support*
• Dock badge status notifications
• Upload successful Window*
• Upload up to 100MB files*

Download QuickShareIt in Softonic