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How to get the most out of Kazaa,
while you still can...
Updated!
Kazaa Reloaded, check this link
here
1. Get Kazaa Lite. The regular
Kazaa is LOADED with spyware and other junk. The main Kazaa Lite
page went down because Kazaa sued them, but you should be able
to find it out there somewhere. If you already have regular
Kazaa installed, look for it on there, it's out there. Once you
have it, uninstall the regular Kazaa, clean your system from
spyware, and install Kazaa Lite.
2. Get Diet K
here. This will improve your download times TENFOLD. It's a
great plug-in for Kazaa. The main thing I use this for is to
search for more sources when it runs dry on sources. It's got
other neat features as well that are very useful, and with new
versions every so often, more features are added. With Kazaa
Lite and Diet K, you can now become a downloading master.
3. (Optional) Get
Protowall
here. This is a little prog that runs in the background of
Windows. When you have Kazaa running, certain companies that are
going after people sharing files, like the RIAA and record
companies, they will monitor people on Kazaa by trying to ping
their machines or connect to them to see what they are sharing.
This little prog will simply deny them of that. It blocks their
requests when they try to connect to you. It has a built-in list
of known IPs from these people and blocks those. It does need
updated every now and then. This prog can help out, but it's
still not foolproof, so don't bet the farm on it.
Once those are installed and configured, you are
ready to download stuff.
Here are my tips for downloading
MUSIC...
1. First set the search filter
to find any music files that the quality is AT LEAST 112kbps.
Select the Auto Search More checkbox, thanks to Diet K. Then
type in the name of the song and the artist. When it comes to
punctuation, use it only when necessary, otherwise you might not
be able to find what you're looking for. Like if a song is
called "Still Lookin' ", type it in as "still looking".
2. Let it do its work! I have a
handy timer program, and for each search, I run it for 2
minutes, then stop searching and try to find the best one. If I
don't have anything pop up by 1:30, chances are it's not out
there.
3. Now you might have a long
list of results, which file do I get? Well, first off, get the
one's with the (+) pluses next to their name. This means that
more than one person has that exact file. That's what makes
Kazaa great, you download a small chunk from a lot of people,
and Kazaa puts them together into a complete file. Take notice
of the number of users that have that file. If you have to pick
between 53 and 2 users, choose 53. You will get the file a lot
quicker and it won't have to search for more sources. I usually
get files that have 5 users or more, 3 users at the minimum.
4. Now something new I have
noticed is that when you see the word "Excellent" next to the
song you want, chances are that file is PERFECT, and not messed
up with beeps like some of the other ones. So when you choose,
try to choose with a lot of users and "Excellent" if listed too.
If it is a song you REALLY want, download 2 or 3 copies of it
just to make sure you get it, so then you don't have to do the
search all over again.
5. Once the song is downloaded,
highlight it, and check the 'status bar' at the bottom of your
window. In Windows XP, it will say some info about the mp3
there. You can also show info on the mp3 by allowing the balloon
popup to come up when you hover your cursor over the file.
IF the file is 80kbps, delete it, its garbage.
It's weird, it will say it will be 128kbps in Kazaa, but turn
out to be 80kbps when downloaded, even if you had a search
filter going.
6. Be sure to listen to the
song to make sure it's the real deal, no skips or funny beeps in
it. When you start playing a song, take a look at the time
counter on whatever program you're using. If it starts growing
in numbers, and goes all crazy, and doesn't do what it's
supposed to, delete the file, its bad. The song will eventually
start playing those crazy beeps, and make you scramble for the
stop button.
Here are my tips for downloading
MOVIES...
1. Select Video, and for search
filters, set the size to at least 600Mb for DVD movies, or 100Mb
for cam movies. (To make it a customized number, select any of
the numbers in the drop-down menu, highlight the number, and
change it to what you want.)
2. Type in what you want and be
very particular on spelling. Make sure you spell it right, if
you are not sure, look it up at the Internet Movie Database,
www.imdb.com to make sure.
3. Let it do it's thing.
Sometimes you have to let it search for a very long time to get
results, it is not as quick as getting songs. I'd say a 5 minute
search at the maximum.
4. Get the movie. With Diet K,
when the file's sources are gone, it will automatically keep
looking for more sources for you. When it comes to getting
movies, do not be surprised if it takes a week or two to get the
movie you want. They are very big files, the size of a CD-R, and
most of the time have very few people that share the file. So
turn on Kazaa Lite, let it run all the time, and with Diet K you
should eventually get the movie you are looking for. You can
also "preview" the movie while it's still downloading, a neat
feature by Kazaa. If you are not sure if the movie you are
getting is the real deal, preview it to save yourself a lot of
time and hassle.
Here are some secrets I have
found out while using Kazaa over the years...
1. Want to get a cam movie,
(watch a movie at home while it's still showing in the
theatres)? Do searches under video for any of the following
abbreviations...
SMR, TMD, MEG, FTF, VV, NFM, and also
DVD
These are abbreviations of movie-ripping clans
that put their abbreviations first in the filename for bragging
rights, example, [SMR]_alien_vs_predator_cam. Do a search under
any one of these and a bunch of files will pop up. The most
frequent ones I have listed first, and the DVD at the end will
also pull up a lot of DVD rips.
2. Want to find homemade
pictures? Do a search under images for any of the following
abbreviations...
MVC, IMG, DSC
These are abbreviations that are put in the
front of the filename for pictures taken by certain digital
cameras, example, mvc_0001, mvc_0002. Most of the time noob
people don't know what they are sharing on Kazaa, or sometimes
they even share their entire hard drive without knowing. This is
a great way to find naked pictures of girlfriends that the
boyfriends don't know are shared on the Internet. Very funny.
3. Which leads me to the great
Kazaa secret. How to find someone who is sharing absolutely
everything on their hard drive. I read about this somewhere, and
I forget what some of the key searches are, but I can give you
hints on how to do it. With Windows machines, there are certain
files that are on EVERY windows machine, no matter what version.
Usually a system file in the /WINDOWS folder. Look in your own
/WINDOWS folder till you find something of importance and do a
search for it on Kazaa. Now if someone out there is sharing
everything, that file should popup. You should now right click
on that file, and select Find More From Same USER. This should
show all of the files that user is sharing. When that is done,
you will be able to see everything, including any password files
or credit card information if they have it somewhere on their
computer. Now all of this SHOULD work, but quite honestly, I
have never gotten it to work. I cannot get any results back when
trying to show all from a certain user.
4. Don't want to get in trouble
for sharing files? Simple, DON'T. Be a leech, there's no shame
in it! :) Kazaa used to allow you not to share files, but I
noticed that option is no longer available to select, so they
make you share now. One trick you can do is this, set Kazaa up
to share a certain folder, say \Kazaa\downloads. Make a shortcut
to the \Kazaa folder, and place that shortcut inside
\Kazaa\downloads folder. Whenever you have a completed download,
drag and drop the file into the shortcut, and that will place
the file into your \Kazaa folder and out of your
\Kazaa\downloads folder, therefore making it not shared.
5. Last but not least, be very
careful of what you get off Kazaa. Make sure your anti-virus is
up-to-date and running because there has been a lot of viruses
floating around in Kazaa in the past. Also another pet peeve of
mine about Kazaa is all these lamers that rename files to
something that it's not. Say you download the X-Men movie, but
when watch it, it's actually Princess Diaries or something. If
you get a falsely named file, do everyone a favor and delete it
immediately. This will help get it off the Kazaa system. I guess
some people get a kick out of doing that. They like to take an
old movie, rename it to something that is coming out very soon,
and share it on Kazaa and watch all the unknowing people
download it with hopes it's a new movie. But to do that, they
actually eat up valuable bandwidth of their own by sharing that
bogus file in the first place. So my advice is, preview your
movies before you get them, and delete mis-named files right
away.
I'm DJ Dingo, and I approve this message. |
