History of Limewire

LimeWire offers two ways to use its system. There is a free LimeWire software download available, which includes banner ads, and a premium service, also called LimeWire PRO, which is available for a flat fee of $18. LimeWire PRO is ad free and offers faster downloads and six months of free updates. As LimeWire explains the difference, the free service is a download of an application, and the PRO service is the purchasing of a program.

LimeWire is supported completely though sales of the PRO service.

LimeWire Launches

LimeWire LLC, the company behind the LimeWire P2P network, was launched in June 2000 by founder and CEO Mark Gorton. The company set out to develop a router that would allow users easier access to the Gnutella system – something they succeeded in doing within weeks of the company’s inception. Gnutella then made this router their default router for their P2P connections.

LimeWire then launched their LimeWire software in August 2000 for easy download. The software eased bandwith demands on Gnutella, and the user friendly LimeWire system drew many P2P users to the Gnutella network.

Within a year of LimeWire software application’s launch, it had been downloaded over three million times.

Open Source

LimeWire made the source code for the LimeWire P2P program available to the public in October, 2001, under the Free Software Foundation General Public License (GPL). LimeWire LLC is dedicated to the principles of free software exchange and allowing users to obtain, change, and redistribute program code. LimeWire LLC has hired users who have suggested changes to their original source code and reward their users for suggesting code changes with cash prizes.

User Program Changes

Because the LimeWire program is open source code, many users have made changes to the program and redistributed it under different names.

Frostwire

FrostWire was developed in 2005 by LimeWire users who were concerned over rumors that LimeWire might place licensing restrictions on their file sharing system. Frostwire is a free system with a beta release, which the creators claim is comparable to the premium version of LimeWire.

Acquisition

Acquisition is a file sharing system for Mac users which is run on the Gnutella network. Acquisition has been accused for violating the terms of open source code sharing by using LimeWire’s core libraries.

Credence

Kevin Walsh and Emir Gun Sirer, students at Cornell University, invented Credence in 2005. Credence is an add-on to LimeWire designed to help users filter out poor quality or corrupt P2P files. It allows users to download a file and then vote on the quality. The votes are stored and subsequent users can check the record of the file to determine its quality.

LionShare

LionShare was developed at Penn State University. It uses LimeWire code to assist file sharing between universities.

Spyware Free

Until 2004, LimeWire’s free program download included a bundle software program called LimeShop. LimeShop was considered to be a form of spyware. In 2004, LimeWire committed to make all of their software free of all types of spyware and bundle attachments. They are one of the only P2P networks to offer such a service.

Firewall to Firewall Swaps

LimeWire was the first P2P system to allow firewall to firewall sharing of files. This service became available in November 2004.

Most Popular Network

LimeWire is one of the most popular P2P networks, with approximately 1 million users a day and 20 million different users every month. It is the second most downloaded program on Download.com.

LimeWire works on Windows, Macs, and Linux, making it the most versatile P2P network. Mac users in particular have embraced LimeWire as one of the only networks available on their operating system.

Related Links

• Finding New Music to Download
• Popular Myspace Music Pages
• Download Free Christmas Music
• Country Music - Free Downloads
• LimeWire
• FrostWire
• LionShare