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Recovered

The following content has been recovered from the old wiki. The information provided on this page is accurate, but should be updated to be more relevant to our current situation

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Shareaza is completely FREE!

Shareaza is an open source peer-to-peer client and it is absolutely free. This means it costs nothing to download, install or use it. The developers of Shareaza work on it in their free time and for free, there is no company behind it.

It said that it's not free and I got charged for it

If you got charged for anything related to Shareaza, then this did not happen on this site. Nothing here at shareaza.sourceforge.net costs anything, not the software, not the technical help and neither the access to any of the communities (forum and chat).

Any site that would have accepted money for the promise of Shareaza is what this community affectionately calls a "scam site". There are many shady companies that take advantage of people who are unfamiliar with the filesharing world, and try to convince you that they are the creators of a particular product, such as Shareaza, LimeWire or WinMX.

If you read the agreement and fine print, you will find that you have most likely paid for permission to access parts of a company's website, for various services or perceived benefits. They dangle the software in front of you as bait, but it's usually not what they actually charge for (they can't, since the program itself was not their effort). Of course they don't make this too obvious, so that most people believe they were charged for the program. Also, they often charge more than what they say they would, hoping you are someone that wouldn't notice or wouldn't know how to complain.

If you've gotten Shareaza from any other website than http://shareaza.sourceforge.net, then you have probably not gotten the real Shareaza.

Because Shareaza is open-source and the source code is freely available, people will sometimes take the source code, make a couple of minor changes (such as changing the name, or the logo—just enough to say that it's a different program) and then try to make a profit from it. They may have also added banners, or spyware; something else that they can make money from.

Etomi and Mp3 Downloading are two of the more notorious examples of companies who do this and they are known to charge more than what they make you believe it would cost.

Can I get my money back?

This depends on who you have been dealing with and who has your money now, so this question can't be easily answered. Please understand that neither the Shareaza developers, nor anyone from the Shareaza community is involved in this and therefore we can't provide any direct help in your case. Nonetheless, it's still possible that you can get your money back.

We can only suggest the following: Contact your credit card company as soon as possible and explain to them what happened. Tell them (if that is the case) that you were fooled by a misleading or fraudulent website and they have charged you without your authorization and/or not by the amount you agreed to be charged. Regardless of what their website may say, your bank or credit card company may reverse the charges if you can show that you were improperly charged or did not get what you thought you were paying for.

Be aware, however that these companies have the sole mission of parting people with their money, and have probably taken great pains to stay just on the razor thin edge of the legality line. Your money is their objective, and they surely have thought out the details on how to keep it.

They say downloading is legal when I pay for it

These sites are run by unscrupulous people, and will often say just about anything to part you with your money.

Some sites will tell you that downloading music, movies, TV shows, etc is legal, because you're paying them. While this might not be impossible, it's very unlikely. Downloading and sharing materials with the appropriate license, or non-copyrighted material is usually legal, and copyright infringement will most likely be illegal regardless of the tool you use, or whom you've paid. If in doubt, check with the content creators.

They promised me additional services, like tech support

They may indeed do so—and it is likely that this is what the agreement says that you are paying for. Read their statements very carefully.

Maybe you've merely paid for "technical support" and not for Shareaza; maybe you've paid to get access to a member-only area of their website, which contains help pages. Sometimes their "support" is just a copy of this help site, with some edits!

In any case, the Shareaza community provides free technical support, which is superior to any other—the Shareaza community includes the creators, developers and maintainers of Shareaza, as well as members who have been using Shareaza for many years. It's very unlikely that anyone else will provide better help. You can get help on the Shareaza Forums, or in Shareaza's chat channel.

Is the program they gave me safe to use?

We can't know. It depends on what they gave you. Maybe it is safe and clean, or it might contain spyware, adware or other malware, including viruses, trojans, etc. If you are unsure, then we recommend that you uninstall the program and do a system scan using a good free of charge virus scanner, and a good free of charge anti-spyware program. (Note: we do not endorse these products, we merely point to them as a convenience to you.) Then, if you wish, install the official and real Shareaza, which you can get from http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/.

So what can I do?

Nobody likes being taken, and so as in all things: Buyer beware!

Call your credit card company, or bank, and attempt to reverse the charges. Ensure that any potential future repeating changes (such as a monthly subscription fee) are rejected.
Carefully re-read the agreement, and see if there is a way of getting your money back, and ensuring that you will not be charged again
File a complaint with the better business bureau, if you wish.
Be critical of any advertisement that purport to sell any P2P program. Do a little research before you shell out your money.
Consider that you have learned a valuable experience, and that your money was indeed tuition to the University of Life (also known as The School of Hard Knocks! :) )
If you succeed in getting your money back, please consider telling us about how you did it and help us help other victims of scam sites.
If someone recommended you such a scam site, or if you know other people that are victims of such sites, then please inform them about the truth and send them a link to these explanations.
If you want, get the real Shareaza, for free, and enjoy the benefits of a helpful community that looks out for its own.

How can I prevent this from happening again?

SiteAdvisor and WOT are plugins for your browser that will show you which sites they believe are good and which sites are bad. Both are available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. They show ratings for websites based on user feedback and on automated analysis. If you find yourself on a "red" site then you should be very cautious about what information you give away whether it is your email address or credit card.

Other Resources

Money for nothing Published by The Guardian Hundreds of new sites are trading on web users' ignorance by selling inadequate or unnecessary technical support for free software. Danny Bradbury investigates. [1]

(Please note that to read the article above, we are aware that you must register for a FREE account at The Guardian. We will not reproduce the full contents of the article on this website because the content is copyrighted and we respect copyright laws. The Guardian has absolutely no affiliation with Shareaza, but our experience with this free account is that it is only in place to conduct active research into user interests. While we make no warranty to the following statement, you can probably sign up for this account with no adverse ramifications. But hey, do whatever you want. It's a pretty good article that clearly explains the problems you are likely facing if you're reading this already.)

http://www.digitalmusicexpert.com/scams/ - goes into more depth on the subject.

How do I find the real Shareaza?

The official home page is http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/. This is the one and only official site.

Beware of advertisements that promise you Shareaza. Shareaza does not advertise on search engines, or use banner ads.
Be very careful of the address you get it from. Some companies take advantage of people by having registered domains that appear almost identical to the real shareaza website. One notorious example is www.shareza.com
If you have any questions as to what the most recent version is, you can find it at the Shareaza Community Forums

If you would like to get more help, then feel free to open a new thread on the forum, explaining your situation. Good luck, and welcome to the community!