Limewire, How do you feel about it?

I am bored and trying to take my mind off of pain, so...

Limewire, the easy download that gives you access to hundreds of songs free, not only that, but the MP3's can be transferred to other systems and then added to an MP3 Player, as well as giving access to videos and other things. What are your thoughts on this system? is it bad? good? helpful? and why?

(Please give at least slightly intelligent replies)

Limewire's turned to shit. I don't want to sound crude, but it's not even good for downloading porn anymore. That was one of main draws, you know. Ofcourse, lets not forget it's riddled with viruses now. Yes, you can also download a virus on torrent or ddl but its much easier on limewire since all you have to do is rename it, stick it in a folder and stay connected. Go with torrents if your gonna go the illegal route.

I don't like Limewire, never have. Right now I use either uTorrent or SoulSeek, the latter of which is P2P like Limewire, but I miss the days before the official WinMX was shut down. You just can't get the same availability via P2P these days...

Just to be precise torrents are also p2p. About the only difference between the two is where they are downloaded from. programs like limewire, kazaa, winmx all use the same service that connects you to other people also using it. This service is called gnutella. It works like a torrent tracker in that it uses hashes to get you the part of the file that you need from whoever else has it. Except, unlike a regular tracker, where you're connecting through some target file on someones server to connect to someone else, you're connecting directly to someone elses computer and getting they're files. Thats both good and bad. Gnutella is good because it'll let you get files at the max speed that the other person is connected with assuming you can also handle that speed. Incidentally, distance form said person is also a factor. The farther you are from them the slower you go. With torrents that problem is alomst nonexistant since everyone is on the same tracker. Your speed on torrents will be slower but it will be more consistent. Its confusing, and I simplified it, but thats more or less how it works.

Limewire was cool but now its not

Yep. Riddled with viruses.