Broadband

[catxx]

i'm finally getting my own broadband/cable/telephone installed on friday
will be setting computers up to go with it at the weekend

the last time i ever did any serious downloading was when Napster was free, so i need some updating!
i won't be downloading music, but i'm interested in tv shows and films
where do i get these from now??

i've tried to understand bit torrent before, but it baffled me.

i have a PC that runs on nice ghetto windows 98 (until i can be bothered to upgrade to XP).

 

[Arfie]

I like Shareaza, it's a peer to peer (P2P) like napster used to be and works off the emule and gnuttella networks, it's probably not the best or fastest as a p2p client, BUT it also handles torrents.

Just source your torrent from a suitable place like mininova or torrents.to click the link and it will open them in Shareaza, simple

I hope you got a large download limit or better yet unlimited, because films take up a lot of your allowance

Arfie

 

[wendywc]

So you're the one here with Win 98. Congrats on getting broadband.

 

[SirMinion]

Torrents are now the only really practical way to get large files. They are CONSIDERABLY faster than conventional P2P and can be resumed easily without fear of the source no longer being available.

On my 10gb broadband I download torrents at up to 600kb/s! (only legal stuff, of course.)

utorrent is my client of choice, google it.

Win98? on broadband? Woah, I hope you've got a decent firewall because win98 is W I D E open to hackers.

 

[catxx]

i got all sorts of random bits and pieces in regards to protection
i will get a hardcore firewall when i get broadband though, didn't have much in the way of that over the last year since leaving my dads (where we were networked so had firewall) and been on rubbish 56k.

and i will get unlimited BB, no point having limited, it's just silly!!

 

[Arfie]

Do you have a package that provides a modem/router or are you getting your own?

If you are paying for one, I'd get a decent modem/router/firewall all in one. Mine is a wireless one and they are about £80, so I'd imagine wired are about £50. The hardware firewall is good and will stop most hackers trying to get into your system.

Then get a software firewall to stop any programs (including spyware etc) on your machine accessing the internet unless you let them. I have got on various machines Norton, McAfee & Zone Alarm and to be honest, with a hardware firewall, the free firewall from zone alarm is plenty good enough I wouldn't pay for the others now. You can also get free antivirus from Grisoft called AVG Free, and antispyware from Spybot S+D and Adaware. That should cover you and I know they all work on Win98 as I loaded them onto a machine I sold just before Xmas

Welcome to the broadband revolution

I have a friend who still runs a machine with Windows 95 and dial up and he can download files pretty quick as Win95 isn't slowing his machine down too much (unlike XP) and now there are so few people left on dial up that it's really sped up again

Arfie

 

[Ami]

I use LimeWire and Soulseek for music. LimeWire was recommended to me by another TFF member and is pretty cool - easy to search and fast to download. Much more opportunity to customise your dowload/upload speed too. Plus it can do other file/media types - although I'm not sure if these are bitorrent or not.

I haven't used Soulseek since!

Firewalls - like Arfie I would recommend ZoneAlarm as your software firewall and a broadband router as your hardware. I have only good things to say about that combination and never got a virus whilst using it - unlike Andywg who has just had a major problem and possibly from viewing the same page I did! I was probably just lucky

I also use Anti Virus Guard (AV Guard) as mentioned by Arfie, Adaware and Popup Stopper free edition and all are doing their job.

 

[catxx]

i have norton, adaware and spybot s+d already
my dad has zonealarm i'll get that too.