Audiogalaxy: Gone Down The Drain
Written: Mar 18 '02 (Updated Apr 04 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Resume downloads.
Cons: Most songs are restricted; Spyware; Doesn't have as many users.
The Bottom Line: Not worth your time.
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| navinthebean's Full Review: Audiogalaxy File Agent |
Audiogalaxy is a small, plain and relatively featureless tool to download music (that's MP3's) from music fanatics such as myself. I began using it as a replacement for Napster, after I lost track of all its legal proceedings. It served my purpose adequately, and I was able to download a few hundred songs.
If the songs are copyrighted, Audiogalaxy will not let me download them. So for example, if I search for U2 or Metallica, the list of songs will show up alright, but it won't let me go further than that. I can, however, download songs by artists that have no copyright restriction. But I was barred access from almost all the songs I searched for, and this is the reason why I'm drifting away from Audiogalaxy.
If you do find a downloadable song (all you have to do is run two or three thousand searches!), you can either get the most popular version or choose by quality (bit-rate). The most popular version is that which more people have, and will therefore be more likely available. I tend to go by quality, which shouldn't be below 128 kbps, unless you actually want it to sound like noisy junk. A song is available only when the grey box next to the name is filled in green. This saves time and effort, for then you need only choose the song that's around at the moment and not have to wait.
The download rate depends on your own internet speed as well as the connection of the person you're downloading from. If the song's taking ages to reach you then you might as well try again and download it from someone else.
The user base isn't as big as Napster's was, and often times I can't find someone who has the song I want online at the same time as me, and so I have to wait. If that person does come online then, if I still have the AG Satellite on, the download will automatically begin. If and when the person goes offline while I'm still in the middle of the download, it will stop, and go on searching for yet another person with the same song. It then resumes from exactly the same place and so the entire download isn't lost.
If you want to share your music, you can designate a folder on your computer to MP3's, and other users will be able to download them from you. By default, this is the same folder the music you download from Audiogalaxy goes into.
Audiogalaxy also features message boards for individual artists. However, these are unmoderated and obscene things have a way of showing up there.
The program is almost entirely browser-based. Every thing from signing up to searching for songs is to be done from your web browser. The only part that is controlled by a piece of software is the MP3 download itself. This particular piece of software, the Audiogalaxy Satellite, takes up no more than 260kb on my hard drive. It isn't feature-packed, but then again it doesn't really need any more features than it already has. The only thing worth a mention is the bandwidth throttle, which controls how much of your bandwidth Audiogalaxy is allowed to use --- more bandwidth used means a faster download & vice versa. However, the more bandwidth you use on Audiogalaxy, the less you'll have to do other things on the 'net (at the time), so be wary of that. Oh, and you can configure your proxy settings from here, too. That's about it.
Tacked to the seemingly innocent Audiogalaxy Satellite, however, is spyware. Audiogalaxy is the piggy-back for webHancer, a hidden program that will gather your personal information without your knowledge. If you have previously downloaded the Audiogalaxy Satellite, use Adaware to remove it; Don't uninstall it through the control panel as doing this will kill your internet connection.
Napster might be gone, but I still need my music. I'm not going to be getting it from Audiogalaxy, though.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
navinthebean
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Member: Navin
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 61
Trusted by: 46 members
About Me:
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
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