Ok, so you thought that with Napster being sued the end of file sharing programs has arrived. Probably the closure of another popular file-sharing program, Scour Exchange just seemed to confirm this thought of yours. But all you music freaks, don’t lose heart!
There are many new file-sharing programs on the net and some of them are really better than Napster. Try out Imesh.
Imesh, like Napster is a file-sharing program, except for the fact that in addition to songs and MP3’s you can download videos, images, documents, software etc... etc. You can also search for all the above at the same time. So isn’t it better than Napster? Besides this
in Napster, while downloading songs you download it only from one user, but in Imesh, the case is different. The Imesh server keeps a track of which user downloaded what file from which user. So when you download a file, depending on the availability of the file, there is a list of people from whom you download. So even if one user goes offline, the download is not paused but is resumed from the next person in the list.
Well there are quite a few things about Imesh because of which I feel it is better than Napster:
1) One place where Imesh scores a point over Napster is that you can resume your downloads. Quite often you start downloading a song from Napster and due to some reason or the other it would remain incomplete (for example you got disconnected from the net ……against your wish). You then will have to download the complete song again from the very beginning, but this is not the case with Imesh, where you can pause your downloads and then resume them later on. So if you have to download, say a video of 40 MB you don’t have to stay on the net for 5 to 6 hours to complete your download. You can always resume it the next time you go online.
2) Like in Napster, even in Imesh you can maintain contacts or friends, chat with them, view their files and download stuff from them.
In Imesh however you can even search for a known friend by his name or nickname and Imesh number (if known), add him/her to your contact list and download the files of your liking from the friend.
You can even forward heavy files (no restrictions on the size of the file) to your friends on their email addresses using Imesh !!!!! Now… now, wait a minute let me explain,
If I want to send a song of 4 MB to a friend of mine whose email address is say xyz@abc.com, then I can send the entire file to my friend using a facility provided in Imesh to this email address from where my friend can download it. However the friend of mine should also have Imesh else he/she would have to first download Imesh from the net and then the song.
A unique feature indeed!
3) The version: Version 2.00 build 119 provides some new and better facilities like the Media Manager and What’s Up. Media Manager can be used to preview the files you are or have downloaded. You can also preview these files using your default player.
What’s Up describes the various options you have while using Imesh.
4) The latest version 2.0.1.120 has some even better features.
a) Hmm… Should I tell this? Ahem…Ahem…Attention Parents, Guardians…as mentioned above, you can download videos, images etc. So if you are worried that your child will have access to adult material, there is a facility in Imesh by which you can block all these undesirable things by setting a password for all videos, or all images or any other file containing some word. I hope this’ll not annoy some people reading this review.
b) In the latest version, there is also this CD writer software. So you have less space hard drive, you can copy all the downloaded stuff on a CD. Of course you need a CD writer drive.
Drawbacks:
1) One of the biggest drawbacks of Imesh is that many a times you suddenly get disconnected from their server and cannot connect again.
2) Sometimes while searching you get a message ’’Server too busy, please try after few minutes.’’
Although this thing has reduced in the latest version, but it hasn’t stopped completely.
3) Another thing, which some of my friends having Pentium Celeron or lower processors have experienced is that, their computer hangs whenever they open Imesh. I however have never faced this problem (I have a Pentium 3).
4) Besides a problem, which I faced even in Napster and facing it again in Imesh is that, the general surfing becomes slow. WebPages take excessively long to load when Imesh is open.
However the positive features overshadow these drawbacks and I would certainly recommend Imesh to everybody.