Author's Note: This review is out of date since AudioGalaxy has been forced to shut down since I wrote it. But I left it up for purposes of historical interest. Go check out KaZaa or something.

Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve given up on Napster. Actually, that may be a little too extreme. But I’m certainly taking a hiatus from it. I got in while the gettin' was good about a year ago, my curiosity piqued by the whole Metallica controversy, and I was never the same. No longer would I buy hardly anything without downloading it first and making sure it was worth my while. Suddenly, I had the chance to investigate a much broader world of music with no financial risk whatsoever, and I would never go back. My very first review on Epinions was about Napster, and how I felt that there were enough people of integrity on the Internet who would still buy the albums that were worth buying, and the whole mp3 sharing controversy would be the catalyst to awaken the record industry to exactly how poor some of the product was that they were putting out. In a perfect world, it would have worked that way. But the music industry came down hard on Napster, and the courts ruled in the industry’s favor. Sigh. I suppose it was a great day for stock songwriters whose job is to write filler material to stuff in between radio singles on 10-song pop albums, but audiophiles like myself were suddenly left in the lurch. I don’t know about everyone else, but I wasn’t gonna go back to the guesswork of grabbing what audio clips I could and sifting through the dreck on the local radio station in order to determine what to buy. I had already passed up too much good stuff using that method, and been burned with some bad stuff as well.

I was able to adapt at first when the courts cracked down on Napster, easily catching on to the multitude of misspelling methods used to get around the file blocking software, but as time went on, more and more was being filtered, to the point where common everyday words like “Why”, “Crazy” and “Dream” would automatically result in rejected queries, no matter what it was I was looking for. The ultimate annoyance came a few weeks ago when Napster forced everyone to upgrade to their newest version, which reportedly recognized the actual contents of a sound file instead of relying on its filename. I logged on using the upgraded version, and found that I could share nothing, which was obviously bogus, since I had independent music is my collection that Napster was supposed to still allow me to share. At that point, I buried my relationship with Napster (albeit in a shallow grave) and asked my fellow music advisors what would be a good alternative, keeping in mind that I didn’t want one of those catch-all download programs like Gnutella installed on my workstation that some people use to download porn. One of the advisors came back with a recommendation of AudioGalaxy. So, I tried it out, and my overall reaction was one of genuine excitement. The mp3 party had only been temporarily shut down by the police – it had simply moved to a lesser known location that was admittedly not as attractive or accessible. But the goods were still there.

AudioGalaxy’s main form of user interface is through its website and a helper application called the “AudioGalaxy Satellite”, which monitors your incoming and outgoing files. This seemed strange to me at first, but I downloaded the software and gave it a try. Putting an artists’ name into a search box would usually bring up immediate results without limiting them to 100 or less like Napster did. I could search for “Dave Matthews Band” and browse all day through the myriad of available recordings (most of them live bootlegs), or add a few extra keywords to further refine my search for a particular song. The website keeps some sort of a huge database, allowing you to narrow your search by artist name and then by song title (the songs can either be sorted by popularity or alphabetical order). The titles that show up appear to be determined by the ID3 tags in user’s mp3 files, instead of the surface filenames, so it does require that users be a little more thorough in naming their files, but I think most of us do that anyway so we don’t have total gibberish in our playlists. If a search matches more than one artist name, you’ll get a list of possible search results, which will allow you to choose the artist you meant to look for. This method is still susceptible to the problem of users misspelling filenames (which is likely purposeful, since some users probably still have leftover misspellings from the days when Napster was easier to dupe), but for the most part, if what you’re looking for is tucked away in some user’s library (which is highly likely), it’ll show up in the search if you’re patient enough.

Downloading is a little trickier, and this is where I do miss the flexibility that Napster allowed. When you search for a song, every mp3 file in the database that has the exact same artist name and song title will comprise one search result. You can choose from there to click the satellite icon and download an mp3 file with the most popular combination of track length and bitrate, or you can choose to search and pick your own version. You don’t see the names of the users who have these files – just the number of users that have the exact same version of a file. AudioGalaxy saves on bandwidth by picking the user who is most easily accessible to you via the Internet, which is truly brilliant. If that user goes offline or the transfer is otherwise interrupted, AudioGalaxy simply finds another user with the exact same file, and resumes from there. This will save users countless headaches, and it was a feature Napster didn’t offer. However, Napster allowed you to manipulate the priority of your downloads, and to pick and choose the connection speed of the user you were downloading from, whereas AudioGalaxy does this for you. So, when you’re viewing your Satellite, all you see is a list of files current being downloaded, uploaded (by other users downloading from you, of course), or prepared for transfer. The only way to see your queue is to view your profile directly on the website, and it doesn’t seem that you can prioritize that queue. Furthermore, I don’t see any way of canceling an outgoing transfer, short of taking the Satellite offline. That can be frustrating if you want to change the name of a file that someone is downloading from you (PC’s are picky about altering the name of something while it’s in use). The Satellite only allows you to view what is going on, and to change your shared directories and pick the download destination. That’s pretty much it.

Another drawback is the seeming instability of AudioGalaxy’s servers. You can often get kicked off and not notice it (at those times, you’ll be exceedingly glad that it remembers the progress of your downloads and resumes them for you automatically). The messages “This page cannot be displayed” and “Cannot find server” are a way of life at AudioGalaxy, and at times that can be frustrating. I realize they’re getting hammered with hits, and I doubt AudioGalaxy is rolling in cash, since it’s a free service, so it’s not like I expect them to perform mass upgrades on their servers. It just means you have to be patient, and you may not always get what you want when you want it. It’s common for me to view my profile and have it give me inaccurate information as to whether my Satellite is running or not. The Satellite and web page don’t seem to communicate very well, and often I’ll have mp3’s waiting in the cue that are being held by a bunch of users who are all online, and yet it’ll take forever for the Satellite to begin the download. The bottom line here is that you won’t always get what you want as quickly as you would with Napster, but you’ll get it. If you try, fail, and forget about it, you’ll often go back later to find a nice surprise in your shared directory.

In terms of user community, AudioGalaxy offers a little more depth than Napster, though this is an area of the site that I have yet to fully explore. You can fill out a user profile that others can view, including your favorite musical genres and artists, as well as descriptions of those artists. This makes it easy for me to find the one other person who likes both Iona and Beanbag, or the 500 kabillion other people who like Creed. Apparently you can create lists and groups and actually feel like there are other real people here. Most of the other users on Napster got dumped into a massive Hotlist, usually due to liking one artist that I was investigating at the time I added them, and eventually I’d forget why they were there. AudioGalaxy even has message boards for the individual artist in their database, though these obviously get unwieldy for the more popular artists. But it’s nice for example, to go onto the PfR message board and post a message telling people that I had just bought the new album and was making it available for them to hear, since no one else had it available yet that I could see. Heck, I should go on there and start posting links to my Epinions reviews for curious listeners to get a more informed viewpoint before they even download. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It’s only been a week or so, and I’ve had a few frustrations, but AudioGalaxy looks promising. Other users have warned of Internet “Spyware” that comes with the Satellite application and wreaks havoc if you try to uninstall Audio Galaxy from your system, so if you’re sensitive about stuff like that, you should definitely read some of the negative opinions of this service. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a program that gets catty when you try to uninstall it. I believe the most widely known one is called Internet Explorer, which I use almost exclusively. Alright, so maybe a SPAM shows up in my inbox from time to time. I’ve had maybe two in the past week, and I can’t even be sure that AudioGalaxy’s software is to blame. I hit “Delete” and get on with my life. It’s worth it for the multitude of free mp3’s. But if your connection is slower and your Email time is very limited (say, you pay for every second you’re online), then you’ve been warned – this might not be for you.

A lot of techies and media moguls are calling Napster a thing of the past due to the unbelievable scrutiny it’s been under, and as a matter of fact, it’s now completely offline until their pay service gets back up. I’ll admit, Napster is easy to use, and if enough people are interested, I will pay to go back and use it, just because it’s more reliable. But if I’m only gonna get charged for a pathetic smattering of random files, many of which are less than acceptable audio quality and held by people with 14.4 modems, I’ll probably cancel my membership after a month and remain with AudioGalaxy.

That is, until the music industry comes knocking on their door as well. Audiophiles of the world, enjoy file sharing while there’s still time. Support the artists you love, and perhaps one day the music industry will embrace file sharing instead of pouring so much effort into weeding it out.


Recommended: Yes