Napster Alternative CuteMX (better than Gnutella)

[Pneumatic]

Well they killed my Napster! I was pretty depressed about it untill I started looking around and found that there were several other ways to share files. Gnutella was the first one I found. I thought it was the answer to my little problem, but when I installed it and tried to find a few things it crashed just about every time. I hit the web again and found CuteMX. JOY! It looks and feels a lot like Napster (but can "share" all kinds of files not just MP3's), is WAY faster than Gnutella, and doesn't crash my system. I think if the word gets out about it, it will REALLY catch on. Give it a try and let me know what you think! http://www.cutemx.com/

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If you can't beat 'em, kill 'em with Kindness

[Jorden]

Where did you find Gnutella?

[Pneumatic]

http://gnutella.wego.com/
Try them both and let me know which one you like better. I need something to fill the hole left by Napster!

[bongo]

I have never heard of CutMX, but Gnutella is firmly esatblished and rather huge in user base...an important factor in sharing stuff: more is better...also, you should try different incarnationtions of Gnutella, there's the plain jane version, but I have found better luck with Gnutella v.70, it's a little different shell but the guts seem to be a little differnt too, as it doesn 't crash stuff as much

good luck

[Nuno]

Test

[SteveC]

CuteMX has been out for months and months and is very good! Only problem being that it's not widely known and used.

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[ahartman]

Don't most of the CUTE programs (CUTEFTP comes to mind) also contain spyware?

Not trying to start a war or unnecessary panic, but I thought I remembered all the CUTE programs being on the list of progs that included some small program that reports web usage... I'll dig for the link and post it if I can find it...

[SteveC]

Yes, they do.

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Pneumatic]

I just like the way it "feels". It is more like Napster to me. But, ummmmmm.... SpyWare? Is there something I need to know? Is "Unexplained" in on this program or what? If so I will delete it immediately.

[ahartman]

hehe - nothing like Unexplained meddling in your software...

There's a small executable with most CUTE programs that basically compile info about you and send it somewhere.

Don't remember the details, but www.grc.com should have the details. Gibson wrote a program that looks for known spyware and removes the programs - be warned, the next time you use the prog, the spyware comes back.

[HollyBerri]

Kindness, a quick course on spyware:

All the "Cute" programs--CuteFTP, CuteHTML, and the new CuteMX--(as well as some 450 other programs, including Go!Zilla, GetRight, most other d/l managers, PKZip and countless others) are available in shareware versions that are fully functional, but contain advertising banners. They are known as "sponsored" software, because the advertising sponsorship allows the developer to give you a full version without you paying for it.

But you do pay... because in order to show you ad banners when you use the program, the banners must be d/l-ed from the Web... which happens because the program opens a port in the background whenever you're on the Web and phones home to get them.

That's bad enough, but that's not the worst.

In order to show targeted banners--- ads based on your interests--- the software tracks where you go on the web and phones that in, too.

The very worst thing is that even when you buy one piece of sponsored software, which removes the ad banners from that program, let us say, CuteMX-- the spyware is not removed from your system, and continues its operations. This is said to be because you might have other programs using the sponsoring function.

The only way that I know to prevent this is to buy the full version software before installing it at all. This way the spyware is not installed. We hope.

You can also get Steve Gibson's OptOut program to check for and remove the most common type of spyware, created by a company called Aureate (now Radiate), but the programs using Aureate/Radiate sponsorship will stop working. We're waiting for an update to OptOut that will address spyware by Real, Netscape and TSAdbot.

You can read more about these issues on Steve's OptOut page, or you can search for the word "spy" on these forums; we've had several threads about it.

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Holly

[This message has been edited by HollyBerri (edited 28 July 2000).]

[Pneumatic]

Well, I looked into it a little bit. On the site that Holly Posted (thanks Holly!) I found this information:

Silent background use of an Internet "backchannel" connection MUST BE PRECEDED by a complete and truthful disclosure of proposed backchannel usage, followed by the receipt of explicit, informed, consent for such use.

In the user agreement all I could find was this:

3. PRIVACY POLICY. GlobalSCAPE may keep statistics regarding your use of the SOFTWARE (e.g., IP address, shared directory listings, number of daily unique users, average sessions per user, average session time and certain system information).

It looks to me like they may check out, or otherwise keep records of how you use the software, but nothing else. Besides, if they want to spy on the different sites I frequent they are more than welcome. I have nothing to hide. I thought you meant that they could get deeper into my system (programs such a Quicken). If I found out about that was going on I would go Metallicaon them in a hurry. As it is I'm not too worried about it, and I still like it better than the Gnutella program. I will probably use them both for a while and see which one sticks.


[This message has been edited by Kindness! (edited 28 July 2000).]

[Pneumatic]

BTW: Holly, thanks for taking an interest in a "blasted mini". Sheesh, I hope I never tick you off!

[HollyBerri]

No prob, Kindness... anyone here will tell you that I'm usually very nice and helpful--especially to people who take the time to read the Forum Survival Guide .

Of course, you'd have no way of knowing that the reason that everyone would tell you that is because I killed and ate the others (with some fava beans and a nice chianti)

j/k ... you hope .

Seriously though, in the whole long thread we had about this, I kind of agreed with you, and I applaud your lack of hysteria.

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Holly

[Joel]

www.tapster.com

Joel