Shareaza

Hi folks,

IMHO, it would be nice if Shareaza connected to all networks by default, and also enabled UPnP to attempt to forward the port automagically.

This is based on my daily experience on IRC: the average users don't have a clue about different networks, they just want to type a file name and get it as fast as possible. So the usual result is that it doesn't work because of the NAT (or works very slowly, which is the same for the user), he pops in the channel, and we spend half an hour explaining him how to configure Shareaza. When everything works fine they're really delighted.

Given the fact that Shareaza lacks advanced features like DHT networks, What's new searches on Gnutella, SecureID on eDonkey and so on, I think we should definitely play its strength: connection to multiple networks, especially now that Microsoft removed the half connection limit on Windows. As for the UPnP, the advantage is obvious: if it works, great, if it doesn't, nobody loses anything. This is what LimeWire does AFAIK.

There may well be downsides to such a configuration by default, but I fail to see what these could be, so your opinion is more than welcome.

Getting a new quick start wizard would be in any case the first logical step in order to get better defaults for everyone... Imagine how much users could benefit from having a correctly configured router by having a connection test done by default on first startup...

BTW, UPnP is already turned on within the quick start wizard...

UPnP turns off if the automatic configuration fails in the wizard which in most cases it does.

I recently reinstalled Shareaza 2.5.2.0 and by default, connection to eDonkey and Gnutella is not enabled. Beleive my experience in #shareaza-french, most users do not know much about that, and when in doubt, they do the most reasonable thing to do: they leave the default settings. Most of them end up using Shareaza with only G2 and being limited by their router, which greatly reduces their satisfaction.

Enabling all networks now that the half connection limit is no longer a problem would require almost no programming/translation efforts and would make Shareaza a little bit more competitive with other clients which now have DHTs, firewall to firewall transfer features and enhanced BitTorrent capabilities. I would also suggest raising the default number of Gnutella ultrapeers from 3 to 4 or 5 in the default settings for the reasons stated above. Given Shareaza's user base, this shouldn't be a problem for the Gnutella network.

Otherwise, only advanced users will proceed to such settings and since they're not the majority (again, I see that everyday on IRC) and I'm afraid Shareaza's user base will fall below a critical mass. After that point, it may well risk becoming irrelevant.