• What is Shareaza and where can I get it?
• Why is it taking so long to hash my files?
• Shareaza keeps rehashing my files, why does it do this?
• Download is finished but Shareaza won't move it to the completed file folder?
• My download says Active, but isn't transferring. What gives?
• My download finishes, Shareaza dumps some of the file and starts to redownload?
• How can I connect to the BitTorrent network?
• How can I continue sharing the file through BitTorrent?
• Is Shareaza safe?
• If I don't allow people to browse my files, is it safer?
• I can't connect to Gnutella2, what's the problem?
• My download speed is high, but the progress bar isn't moving as fast. Why not?
• What to do if you can't connect to Gnutella 1

Shareaza is a Peer-to-Peer client for Windows which allows you to download files of any type found on several popular P2P networks.
Since its release just last year, Shareaza has come to be recognized as one of the most innovative P2P applications, positioned at the cutting edge of new ideas and technologies. Until now, all of this energy has gone into making Shareaza the “best Gnutella client”. Along the way Gnutella had to be improved, so Shareaza developed and championed Gnutella2 – now the most feature-rich file sharing-network in existence today. And the current public beta is just about finished and ready for prime time which brings many more features to Shareaza such as two more networks eDonkey2000 & BitTorrent!

These new networks haven't just been tacked on -- Shareaza has been redesigned as a true universal P2P client, able to take full advantage of all the resources available to it. When downloading a file, it can be swarmed from all connected networks simultaneously, automatically selecting the best fragmentation and partial verification schemes! The new upload system is extremely powerful, supporting complex user-defined queues to optimize sharing the most important files first.

Best of all - Shareaza is FREE & contains NO spyware or bundled products.

You can download Shareaza here, or if you have specific questions not answered by the BBR Filesharing forum or this FAQ you can go directly to the official Shareaza forums here.

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by Stec$ edited by swintec
last modified: 2009-11-16 01:31:38

Shareaza scans files and creates several different types of hashes such as SHA1, TTH, MD5, and CMD4. It takes Shareaza awhile to generate this information because minimal CPU is used for the operation. To increase the speed of this hashing, go to Physical, right click on the side panel and turn on Quick Hash. Although this will speed it up, it will also place a heavier load on your computer.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:05:06

If you are sharing across a network and that computer goes down, Shareaza will have to rehash every time it loses contact with the other computer.
If you're using Windows XP, you will need administrator rights or else it will have to hash your files every time Shareaza is started.
When you move your files, Shareaza will have to recalculate hashes for those files.

Using Windows Media Player 9 can change your hashes with its Smart Jukebox organization. WMP9 will add missing fields for ID3 tags when possible, which changes the mp3's hash. It is recommended that you turn this feature off in WMP9 through the program's options.

It is possible that through a time change, your library will completely rehash. It is unknown why this may occur but most likely it is due to the file system in use.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:05:15

If the download is not green (status isn't verified) than the file has not been verified and will not be moved to the completed files folder until verified.

Alternatively, it may very well be that the download is still missing a few bytes - 20kb, 30kb at the end - and the download really isn't finished. In this situation patience will usually pay off, or you may want to try the above solution.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:05:26

Shareaza will display Active if you are remotely queued by a source. A remote queue is a line you have to wait in to get the file. If you are remotely queued by the source you will see Q # of # when you expand the list of sources (by clicking on the + sign next to a file waiting to be downloaded)

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:05:35

This occurs when Shareaza downloads a "corrupt" file chunk from one of its sources. It will automatically throw out the bad bits of the file and re-download them again to ensure that the file you are downloading is exactly what you have requested.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:05:42

BitTorrent isn't your average p2p network. When you download .torrent file from a site, it will contain a link to a tracker which creates a mini-network for that file. BitTorrent is not searchble by common means. Need help with BitTorrent see the BitTorrent FAQ by Archivis in the FAQ section.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:06:28

After the file is done downloading, if you leave the file in the download window it will continue to share on the network. It is also highly recommended to keep the file in your download window for an hour or two (if possible) to help share the file you just downloaded.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:23:19

All file-sharing programs have their risks, but as long as you don't share anything illegal it is just as safe as any other file-sharing client.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:08:11

People may think this to be more secure, but it is not. As long as you are downloading or uploading files, it has the same effect as if someone browses your files. It is recommended that you leave browsing on, as it creates a more community driven network.

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by Stec$ edited by removed
last modified: 2003-05-30 20:08:19

Click on these links to add working discovery services to Shareaza so you can get hosts to connect.

shareaza:gwc:gwebcache.jonatkins.com/cgi-bin/gwebcache.cgi
shareaza:gwc:gwc.fspn.cryptnet.net/gcache.cgi

You will need to reconnect or restart Shareaza.

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by StEC edited by removed
last modified: 2003-12-20 13:31:24

This may be very different for people because by default Shareaza displays speeds in kilobits rather than kilobytes. To change this setting, go to Tools > Shareaza Settings > General. By Show rates in: change the bits/second to KB/s or bytes/second.

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by StEC edited by removed
last modified: 2003-12-20 13:44:12

Sometimes Shareaza won't automatically connect to Gnutella 1 clients (Bearshare, Limewire, etc). When that happens, you will need to connect manually using the host cache. You can either press F8 or View->Host Cache to bring up the window.
Select about 10-15 from the list and right click, selecting "Connect Now". This number may seem a bit high, but may be needed to get the default 2 G1 connections when the network is busy.

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by Doctor Four edited by removed
last modified: 2005-07-04 16:36:56