Napster should consider itself lucky. It just narrowly missed being shot down as the king of the MP3-download genre.

Scour Exchange (or SX) touts itself as the latest MP3 Software That Will Change Your Life. However, knowing the crowd its serving, Scour is obviously trying to insinuate that this "revolutionary" program is like Napster, only better. And indeed it does sound pretty good to today's digital music enthusiast, offering search abilities for audio, video, and image files. In other words, the program works just like Napster, only with more media options. (This leads one to ponder when programs will be developed to allow users to scan other people's hard drives for any files. And this only leads to innumerable security concerns--if they can see what I have, can they find a way to trash it?)

But I digress. To make it simple, this program could have possibly lived up to its claims. Unfortunately, the countless amount of bugs I've encountered in the last 2 weeks with Scour Exchange make me reluctant to turn away from Napster anytime soon.

The Good...

The first thing I noticed after I installed the 1.4MB download was that the login time was very fast, almost instantaneous. Napster's been known to take several minutes to completely log in, and even at that point it sometimes takes a minute or two for your first to go through. Not so with Scour Exchange; login is quick, and search results are usually returned within seconds. This isn't a big deal, but it's the little things like this that give SX its few advantages over Napster and similar programs.

An obvious advantage is the increased amount of media which can be searched for using SX. No more waiting impatiently in IRC channels to download the latest South Park episodes (I don't get Comedy Central where in this part of Mississippi, go figure), and finding music videos has never been easier. I suppose the Image search option is useful to some, but as I stick mainly to download music and music videos I found this option to be of no use to me.

The download time for most songs was comparable to Napster's, no better or worse. Of course, these programs rely on direct connection to the users' hard drives, so it's understandable that there wouldn't be a big difference here. SX seems to establish the connection between users a split second before Napster normally does, although this may be nitpicking. In this case, neither Napster nor SX comes out on top.

The simple layout of the page, which relies on utilizing Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 or later, should be straightforward even to newcomers to the MP3 craze. A nice feature on the otherwise dull front page "SX Now!" is the links to pages listing known bugs (of which there are quite a few--read on...) and network status; unlike Napster, I can now find out if my inability to login is due to the SX network or connection problems on my own network.

And for you bad kids who don't like to share, there's an option to not share your files at all with the SX network, something that Napster enthusiasts have been practically begging for. (I personally have no respect for you if you check this box--this violates the whole principal behind programs like SX and Napster, which is to make music more widely available. Do the right thing, kids, and share your music.)


The Bad...

So all of the above should make SX one hell of a program, right? Unfortunately, the numerous bugs make the advantages of SX easily forgettable.

The first time I installed it, the program crashed anytime I tried to access one of the many drop-down list boxes. This problem pretty much disappeared after a reboot, but still rears its ugly head from time to time. Another annoying quality is the virtual impossibility of changing the settings you accept when you install SX. I spent almost half an hour trying to remove certain folders from my Shared list (I don't feel like clogging bandwidth with all of my music videos), until I eventually gave up and changed the settings manually (by editing the Files.txt and Folders.txt files). I also find it impossible to change my download directory--every time I try to change it to a different folder, click Apply, click OK, then access the menu again, the original setting is listed again! This is about the point that I can almost hear SX laughing vilely at me, usually causing me to shut the program down in disgust.

Since downloading, SX has crashed often, seemingly at random. Additionally, other users have reported other bugs involving international versions of Windows and some Windows shutdown errors. Since this is a beta, though, I'm almost willing to look past these when judging the program. Almost. Hopefully the next version of SX will be much less unstable.

A big drawback to me was the lack of a chatting feature like in Napster. I occasionally spend more time chatting on Napster than looking for music, as interacting with fellow music lovers helps me expand my musical horizons. Plus, the small, moderated rooms are almost harassment-free, unlike most IRC channels. For some reason, SX chose not to implement this, giving Napster a clear advantage in this category.

There also seems to be some problems with the Hotlist option, which lets you browse through other users' media libraries. Specifically, files which I know the user has are often not showing up when that user is selected. Case in point: I did a search for an older Coal Chamber song, and one user popped up with almost their entire album. I added him to my Hotlist, checked his library, and not a single Coal Chamber song is listed! This problem has shown up more than a few times, leading me to wonder why I should even bother. This Hotlist feature is so unreliable that I've rarely used it at all lately--after all, what's the point of using it if it won't work properly?

This last question, in fact, could be asked not just about the Hotlist, but about SX as a whole.


The Skinnee... (sorry, obscure pimprock reference :)

Ultimately, Scour Exchange is a decent program that, when working properly, should be seen as a decent companion to Napster. However, this is no Napster substitute by far, if only because of the many annoying bugs which could cause the program to crash at any moment. Some would excuse these by reminding that this version of SX is still a beta version, but then again so is Napster (officially). If Scour believes this program is good enough to release to the general public, then they should at least take a little extra time working out such simple little bugs. Altogether, SX is worth downloading, but you'll probably find yourself sticking with Napster in the long run.


About three weeks ago I found a recommendation of SX from another Epinions reviewer in my Inbox. Although I'd used the Scour online MP3 search engine somewhat often before last September, I'd since turned away from it after downloading Napster and discovering Audiogalaxy's online MP3 engine, which in my opinion did a slightly better job than Scour's web engine.

Unfortunately, that may be Scour's legacy--coming close to outdoing the competition, but never quite reaching that plateau.

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(Scour Exchange is available for us Windows losers at http://sx.scour.com/Configure/GetLatest/SXClient/Windows/; a Unix version is reportedly in the works.)



Recommended: Yes