How to Connect to Gnutella and Gnutella2 Networks (Shareaza)

The Gnutella and Gnutella2 networks, while sharing few similarities beyond their names, are two traditional networks users connected to for their filesharing needs. To this day, it is still possible to connect to and use these networks. Gnutella has a variety of clients that can connect to it while Gnutella2 still has Shareaza one can use to connect to it. In this guide, we’ll show you how to use Shareaza to connect to both networks.

Download and Install

To get Shareaza, go to the Shareaza Sourceforge page and go to the download page. You can get either a 32bit or a 64bit version. Wait the few seconds to download the program on the subsequent page, then save the file.

Shareaza supports multiple languages.

Click “Next”.

Accept the license.

Choose the directory you want to install Shareaza to.

Decide if you want to create a desktop shortcut or not via the tickbox.

Decide on a few personal preferences for Shareaza. On the next screen, click the “Install” button.

Note: This program may install a Visual C++ package. This package is required to run this program and may take a moment to install (initialize). When done, you’ll be given a link that explains some basic security when using this program.

When done, you’ll be given a chance to run this program for the first time.

Startup Wizard

When you start up Shareaza for the first time, you’ll be guided through a startup wizard. Click next.

You can set your connection speeds and try uPnP in this window.

In this window, you can set which folders you wish to use as shared directories. You can remove the default folders which appear to be the downloads folder.

You can probably leave pretty much everything blank in this window and make up a username if you wish.

If you use BitTorrent through another client, it may be a good idea to untick “Handle Torrent links” You can set up some GUI preferences here.

In this window, you can connect to three networks. If you wish to connect to the eDonkey network, I would recommend you use eMule instead. This is why I chose to untick the eDonkey network.

In this screen, you can set a few more preferences. I would recommend unticking “Start Shareaza every time Windows starts” as it’s best to leave programs like this starting up when you want them. If you do tick this, it may take an extra second or so for Windows to start up each time you boot the computer.

Searching for Files

This is the general GUI of Shareaza. You can search for files by clicking on the “Search” button along the top of the screen.

After you click on the search button (which will be highlighted now), you can perform searches in the area I’ve circled. After you perform a search, you can perform another. All of your previous searches can be switched to along the top of the screen which I drew an arrow to. You can download files that appear on the right hand side of the screen.

Uploading and Downloading

To view your downloads, simply click on the “Transfers” button along the top of the screen. This window allows you to see active downloads. To view the uploads, right click on the transfers button and hover over “advanced” and click on uploads in the subsequent menu. A new screen will appear so you can see your active uploads.

(Note: This only applies in basic view mode. If you opted to use power mode, then you will see both upload and download activity in the transfers window).

Closing

When you try to close Shareaza for the first time, you’ll be asked how you wish Shareaza to be closed when you use the ‘X’ button. I recommend “Shut down Shareaza Immediately”. It can be easy to forget this program is running in the background if it’s simply minimized to the system tray.

FAQ

Is it safe to use Shareaza?

If, by safe, you mean free from malware, then no. Shareaza does emphasize protecting yourself by using anti-virus software. Try to exercise common sense when finding new files like watching for the sizes of files.

If, by safe, you mean free from DMCA complaints, then no. Nothing will every be 100% foolproof safe from such actions if you are trying to download copyrighted material. Instead, I would recommend sticking with content released under shareable licenses such as GNU and Creative Commons.

When I was started up Shareaza, I noticed it started hashing files before I even got to the shared folders section of the wizard. Am I sharing anything?

This was something I noticed to while writing this guide. I’m not sure why Shareaza decided to start hashing files from the default folders before I had a chance to tell it not to use that folder, but I didn’t notice anything that was shared after I had told it to not share files from my downloads folder. I would recommend creating a folder on your computer and designating that as a folder if you have to create a folder in the first place. You want to know what you are sharing in the first place. To my knowledge, you aren’t sharing anything if you told Shareaza not to share it.

I chose the wrong view mode. How do I switch from one to the other?

You can toggle the view mode by going into “view” and clicking on “power mode” (or the opposite if you are already in tabbed/power mode).

I can only upload and download with restricted hours/certain times of the day. Can I set up a scheduler?

Yes, but I could only find this in power mode.

Click on “View”, then “Scheduler”.

You can then begin adding tasks by clicking on the “add task” button. You’ll get a small pop up window with four tabs.

I can only share a certain amount of bandwidth up and down. Can I put a limit on how much I can upload and download?

I could only find a bandwidth limiter, but not any way to set a total transfer amount. I can show you where this is found, though.

For this, we can go into “Tools” and then “Shareaza settings”.

Next, click on “Downloads”. You can find the limiter here. Similarly, you can find the upload limiter in the Uploads section just below downloads.

I found an error in this guide, how can I tell you about it?

In the comments section below. This is supposed to be a beginners guide, so keep that in mind if you want to add anything.