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LimeWire Not as Popular as Recent Reports Suggest

Today several news sources again reported that 36.4% of all PCs have Limewire installed. The reports are based on a press release published by Digital Music News, who misinterpreted their own data. The acual install base is less than 18%, 17.92 to be exact.

LimeWire Not as Popular as Recent Reports SuggestArs Technica published an article in which they quote the press release from Digital Music News, and report that one third of all PCs have Limewire installed. This article was later picked up by Digg, Slashdot and several other news sources. However, as we have reported before, this figure is incorrect.

It turns out that Digital Music News report is based on data which was collected by PC Pitstop. Unfortunately Digital Music News has trouble interpreting their own data. They claim in their press release that it is 36.4%, but that is the market share compared to other P2P clients. This means that on all PCs that have a P2P client installed, 36.4% installed Limewire

The actual install base of Limewire is less than 18%, still impressive, but not even close to one third of all PCs. Nevertheless, LimeWire is still the P2P application that is installed on most desktop computers. In comparison, with an install rate of more than 5% on Windows PCs worldwide, uTorrent is now by far the most popular BitTorrent client.

TorrentFreak contacted Digital Music News’s Paul Resnikoff two weeks ago about this issue and he told us: “I think you’ve definitely caught an error in our reporting. We’ll be issuing corrections on this. Thanks for the assistance.” So far, the initial reports haven’t been corrected, and this blunder is published as fact over and over again.

For those who are interested, here you can find the raw data where the report is based on.

limewire

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  • James.

    Haven’t used it in years

  • Anonymous

    I never used it. By the time I got broadband the time for BT had already begun.

  • bollocks

    Again with the rubbish 5%. Take download.com as a rough example of what people really are using from the total number of downloads per client.

    Morpheus 5.5.1 171,718,771
    BitComet 0.97 56,863,181
    BitTorrent 6.0 13,317,960
    Azureus 3.0.1.6 2,212,073
    uTorrent 1.7.5 1,423,664
    BitLord 1.1 1,244,464

    I’d be more willing to accept those figures to be representative of what people have installed.

  • http://torrentfreak.com Ernesto

    [quote comment="249696"]Again with the rubbish 5%. Take download.com as a rough example of what people really are using from the total number of downloads per client.

    I’d be more willing to accept those figures to be representative of what people have installed.[/quote]

    Well, you can only download Bitcomet and other apps from download.com. uTorrent is mostly downloaded from utorrent.com, and not included in the download.com stats ;)

  • Anonymous

    If you look at Yahoo! Answers, it looks like every dumbass on Yahoo! has this trash installed.

  • Winston

    Bittorrent is certainly the best when it comes to downloading larger files but I still find Limewire the quickest way to download individual songs.

  • bollocks

    [quote comment="249699"][quote comment="249696"]Again with the rubbish 5%. Take download.com as a rough example of what people really are using from the total number of downloads per client.

    I’d be more willing to accept those figures to be representative of what people have installed.[/quote]

    Well, you can only download Bitcomet and other apps from download.com. uTorrent is mostly downloaded from utorrent.com, and not included in the download.com stats ;)[/quote]

    I realise that most people will be getting utorrent and azureus from their respective sites, but I still think the figures are somewhat representative of the popularity particularly betwen Azureus and utorent. If someone can come up for some figures from utorrent.com about their download stats that would be great. But I find it hard to believe that they’d beat 171 million. Azureus ranks 2nd (behind emule) for total sourceforge downloads to date with 158,351,685 downloads .That said, I think the figures for Morpheus also show that Limewire is not as popular as pehaps it once was. I always prefered Bearshare myself till iMesh got their grubby hands on it.

  • dtstuff9

    limewire gave me worms!!!

    torrents are currently the best!

    if i want individual songs i still use torrents or use google to download single songs.

  • Why

    My bad… I published the ARS article on ThePirateBlog…. :(

    I’ll publish this too.

  • Long time user

    Limewire is monitored more any other P2P program, plus, theres that ‘shared folder’ that anti pirites look for….mmmm after they have your IP your in deep doodoo…I won’t touch it…

  • KHAL3D

    man limewire rocks no doubt, but every time i run it ,it makes my PC run slower (usin 512 RAM).. so yeah i use Bittorrent (Bitcomet) and i can diselect other songs in a certain album and down the desired song only :)
    it’s thaaaaaat simple!

  • batti

    I still find that Limewire sometimes has things that I can’t find a torrent for, and for smaller files (like single songs) it’s easier and faster. I like how it can automatically load the songs into iTunes as soon as they are downloaded.

  • annon, never forgives

    I havn’t used any of that low quality gnutella tosh in years, I’d rather say that 38.5% of computers worldwide have some kind of p2p software installed, rather than just limewire.

    Thats what you call short sighted journalism.

  • Zoness`

    Limewire itself is trash. It’s coded in Java making it a brutal memory whore plus it is full of bugs and exploits. If you want to browse the Gnutella network get something like Shareaza or Phex (but thats still Java) or maybe even an older program like Gnucleus that allows you to browse both G1/G2. G1 is pretty much trashed as it seems it is currently among the most popular p2p networks. I personally like Ares for things that I used to download on Gnutella.

  • James.

    I think the story should be, the RIAA want Limewire to become more popular so it’s easier for them to view shared content.

  • Neglacio

    I’ve used KaZaa, LimeWire, BearShare and Shareaza, and for me, Shareaza still rocks ass!
    I only use 3 G1 connections (Shareaza can climb up too 5, which is why LimeWire pro claims to be faster) but I’m also connected to G2 (which doesn’t go faster by the amount of connections) and I still tend to get 200KiB/s (no, not Kb, but KibiByte)
    A very good speed in my opinion for a rare metalsong!

  • booga1134

    ares 4 small files

  • anon

    i never used limewire, it came about after kazaa and was like a shitty version of it. soulseek has aways been the best in my opinion, next to private BT trackers ofcourse

  • Moo, not at UCF for winter break.

    No quality control = fail.

  • Neglacio

    Yeah. In Shareaza’s G2, there’s a rating system. Much better to find quality :)

  • mon

    hey what about songspy? karma points? anybody?

  • Floodge

    Soulseek, anyone?

  • 14yearold

    FROST WIRE ROCKS BABY !

  • Quartz

    I use WinMX and have never left it for any other client, sure I tested a few here and there but to be honest nothing I have seen offers what I can get on winmx, chat, files and friends, that plus it cant be shut down like many of the newer “controlled” networks the media cartels target.

    Limewire is a very popular program with the youth of today whatever way you look at it, same with Utorrent, the fact is I dont know anyone using anything else.
    The small memory footprint and ease of use ensures users dont need to waste time on what should be a simple operation.

    In short while the original figures may be fiddled to make the userbase look bigger, is it not in our interests to look at the bigger interest of all file sharer’s?

    Letting your blood boil over what client folks use to kick the cartels ass is lame, lets just be happy we have a diverse array of clients and an army of users.

  • Tor

    Done Limewire, done torrent… Now’s the time for Servers (like RS.com), always maxing out the downloadspeed.

  • Darkane

    This data is bullshit. All this means is that 18% of people who use PC Pitstop have installed Limewire at one point. That is a -very- small sample of global computer usage. The real number of PCs with Limewire installed is more like ~1%. Just think of the sheer number of computers used in business and educational settings that can’t and won’t have Limewire installed. That same group of systems won’t be using PC Pitstop.

  • stellamanna

    @ 14 yearold, i agree frostwire seems far superior to limewire.

    i think apps like frostwire have their uses like dl’ing individual songs, but for torrents UTORRENT is the best.

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  • Anonymous

    Thanks for turning over such an obvious misinterpretation from DMN — who ought to be ashamed for charging $295 for such rubbish!

    Mind you, with Limewire showing on (*only*) 18% of those PCs checked by the PC Pitstop sample, it kind of suggests that *all* their data is similarly very atypical.

  • ufcpride

    Limewire, shouldn’t it read,
    Lamewire….

    I hardly used it when P2P was the thing to have, even then i used iMESH. Too many viruses nowadays, then i moved to Bitcomet, (that got banned on most private sites) so then moved to uTorrent. Still using this today, (sometimes).
    But the way forward is Newsgroups!! Yes i pay a small fee every month, but i have a (supposidly) 8mb BT Broadband line and get around 4-6000 kbs.
    700mb film takes approx 33 minutes!!

  • hohoho

    dont forget KCEasy. it supports Gnutella, Ares, and OpenFT networks.

  • Anonymous

    It’s all about the google trick. . .

  • slvclw

    http://www.frostwire.com/

    Is 1 million times better than limewire: The interface looks like limewire.

    Completely Free & open-source Firewall-to-firewall transfers
    Absolutely NO Spyware or Adware Connects to more
    iTunes Integration BitTorrent Support Proxy Support

  • sultan

    it only good 4 downloading music

  • th3lonius

    Frostwire blows.. like all the others. I never used Limewire because of the ads, malware, etc. I doubt I would have found much that I wanted on it anyway. Several friends used it back in the day (uh… seven years ago or more) but I don’t know anyone who uses that garbage anymore.

    Before BT I used emule/edonkey, DC++ a little bit, IRC, and Soulseek. IRC and Soulseek are the only two I continue to use (though very little) since the BT revolution.

  • th3lonius

    [quote comment="250160"]
    But the way forward is Newsgroups!! Yes i pay a small fee every month, but i have a (supposidly) 8mb BT Broadband line and get around 4-6000 kbs.
    700mb film takes approx 33 minutes!![/quote]

    A waste of money methinks. I download 700MB dvdrips in half an hour anyway (or less)… for FREE. I just have the basic 6Mbit comcast connection. Maybe you just need to tweak your TCP settings. ;)

  • Whisp3r

    i tink its ok if your looking for underground music that aint going to be on BT yet if at all. here there is a big underground sence and hard to get hard of music cept for limewire.. So yea, Utorrent good for films/games/albums. limewire good for one off songs you cant download off BT sites!

  • e

    limeware BAD
    torrent/dc GOOD

    if you don’t want viruses, stay away from limewire

  • ar-lock

    Its had to get on a good private music
    tracker…
    so people have to use soul-seek etc to find the rarer songs..

  • Hold on!

    Back the truck up — need a follow-up story with more details — what is PC pit stop and why is it a valid statistical sample of installed applications? How does PC pit stop know what applications are installed on a computer? Do people self-report installed applications? Sorry, I just want more info.

  • Free Pirate Allaince

    never did like limewire or kaza or any of that, ai found lots of fakes, slow Dl(prob due to crappy conetion at the time)
    viruses, ads, all that crap
    plus i like to download full albums not just one song

  • Anonymous

    i’d be interested in how you do that,
    can you mail ufc-pride(at)hotmail.co.uk with details for a fellow downloader :o)

  • Off topic..sorry…

    At Fri December 28th
    11:47 AM Central time here in the US
    unable to connect to:

    http://thepiratebay.org
    88.140.176.146

    Anyone else having problems? MAYBE its Just temporary? After Demonoid going down I have a bad feeling about it! Tried a visual route tracer program, told me unable to connect to port 80. Tried a proxy workaround, same result…anyone?

  • julian

    piratebay offline

  • Neglacio

    Piratebay if offline.
    They’re eating waffles, just wait. Nothing to worry about.

  • anony

    on all tracker sites i’ve been on that have polls for what people use as clients the winners are always uTorrent and then the second most used is Azureus

  • Q

    I’m surprised by the results since i dont see eMule (eDonkey network) mentioned at all considering it has the widest, most diverse databse of ANY p2p protocol…i have found virtually everything on eMule that does not exist on LimeWire, BitTorrent, etc…the only way this can be is that there is an enormous user-base that is sharing way more content than any other p2p platform. Try it yourself and compare, you will see that eMule wins hands-down when looking for content.

  • open

    napster was the shiat back in the days.

  • …

    Don’t forget bitcomet.com
    bittornado.com
    torrentstorm
    abc.com
    etc…
    download is just hosting it and only minor download a few torrent app that is widely available everywhere else. Unlike most of ya
    I use multiple client

    saying utorrent is the best is bs
    there is no best.

  • peter guszti

    Great, article. Limewire is getting worse and worse. so much spyware, and ads. I even posted a few comments and this link on my blog,
    http://www.opentopix.com/topic/tech-news/limewire-not-so-popular-full-of-spyware-and-shit

  • no way

    even 17% makes no sense for LW
    it cant be higher than 10%
    it has so many bad files that it just can’t be that popular

  • Neglacio

    Not LimeWire generates those files, it are (MAFI)AA-supported spambots.
    If another network will have a weak-spam spot, and will become popular, then the *AA will target those too.

  • Anonymous

    Limewire is huge because most computer users are now dummies.

  • HuitZiloP

    [quote comment="249975"]FROST WIRE ROCKS BABY ![/quote]
    +1 to that

  • queen

    princess

  • Hitman

    [quote comment="249975"]FROST WIRE ROCKS BABY ![/quote]

    Way to go there little guy…if im not mistake frostwire is the same thing as limewire, other than support and occasionally content

  • soullexx

    I got spyware and shit when I installed app’s like limewire.

  • king2

    If you use limewire wisely , then you wont get any spam.
    there is an spam/junkfilter that works verry good .

    But it seems a lot of users look for sex files , dont use there brains , and are really ending with a lot of spam.

    i am on gnutella , with phex , frostwire,limewire , so choice enough just starting again after an period of not using , most of the time sharing asian movies from the newsgroups …….for me it is an uploading tool …works great .

    once and a while ill download and check an file goes well, but have to say that iam using gnutella in combination with newsgroups , thats enough for me …

  • Anonymous

    FrostWire is exactly the same as LimeWire except for the skin. If you don’t know that little, you’re 100 years to early to open your mouth.

    Anyone who claims he got spyware, viruses or whatever from LimeWire should be thrown into prison because this level of stupidity is a threat to the public. In other words, you guys have AIDS for sure.

  • Really? You get fooled on Limewire?

    You must be new;
    there’s a handful of _painfully_ obvious indicators on fake files, and then a couple of post-download methods to continue to check [hint; "blame microsoft"; y'all know what I'm sayin':)].

    They are so blatantly obvious in fact, that I remain casually undecided; is it obnoxious script kiddies/teens flooding the network, or the mafIAA? Because it sure is low grade…

    I’d give more info, but, I like their spamming attempts low grade; I’d like to keep them that way:)

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  • Anonymous

    RS.com? You taking the P*SS?

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  • http://www.comparemusicdownloadsites.com/blog.html Bobilicious

    Even if the numbers weren't as high as the initial report, it's still a rediculously huge amount of users we're talking about which are hurting the music industry, among others but I'm more concered about music. It's our own fault the music industry is going down the tubes.

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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