I decided that it was time to retire my old version of Ares Galaxy and pick up one of the newer — and better — version of Ares. I hadn’t been a position where I needed to download Ares for some years now, so I was essentially new to the area.

I’d been on the Official Ares site before; it’s good resource for ‘current affairs’ of the P2P filesharing world and is a great information resource. I vaguely remembered that the site had a reviews section. I’d not been there before, but I thought it might be a good place to start on my quest to download Ares.

To say I am impressed with the quality of information there really is an understatement. Even if I were new to the p2p filesharing game I wouldn’t have any trouble deciding which was the best way to download Ares. I went ahead and managed to download Ares (Ares Ultimate was my Ultimate choice) without much trouble.

Thanks very much Official Ares – you made my day a lot more trouble free than it could have been. Lifesaver. I would definitely recommend this site to new and old hands alike. There’s nothing like it anywhere on the Internet.

We had no idea that Fergal “Teenage Kicks” Sharkey had a blog, but he does, over at the Guardian website. Fantastic. In his latest post, Sharkey says that a recent survey of 14-to-24-year-olds in the UK revealed that 63% use filesharing services to download music.

Those surveyed said that they love music and that they do still like CDs. More than 80% who use filesharing services said they would be interested in legal filesharing services.

Even if such a filesharing service were created, more than half of those surveyed said they would still buy CDs. Fergal Sharkey sees the solution to all of this in subscription-based filesharing models. He may have a point here.

Fergal Sharkey seems to be one of a select group of musicians in tune with the way the music industry is heading. It’s refreshing to read a balanced and insightful opinion on filesharing and music downloads from someone who has a powerful voice.

Good job, Fergal.

Having recently come back from a wondrous vacation in Phuket, I now feel qualified to give advice on certain aspects of a trip there!

Phuket nightlife is bustling and lively. There are plenty of bars, clubs and restaurants and it is unlikely that one could get bored looking for a new thing to do in the evening. The variety of places that are open is unbelievable when I think back to the sleepy island I encountered when I last visited around 10 years ago. Having said that, Phuket nightlife is very much more sedate when compared to what can be found in Bangkok or other places.

The bars and clubs around the island range from traditional Thai-style clubs with local bands entertaining locals and vacationers alike, to Western-style super clubs catering for the hardcore clubbers. In the middle are numerous tourist clubs that play the latest in chart dance hits and provide a cheap source of booze. If you’re looking for a night that you probably won’t remember then this is the place to go! The variety means that, if nothing else, Phuket nightlife is never boring.

So, in summary: Phuket nightlife is good, but it has still got some way to go before it can match Bali or Singapore.

Rogers Cable, Canada’s largest ISP, recently held a press conference to dispel a few myths about how it shapes its bandwidth with regards to people using filesharing networks.

A spokesperson from Rogers said that the ISP does not block filesharing traffic. Rather, it controls the traffic when it is uploading data. Apparently, many people are unaware that when they download material through filesharing networks, they are also uploading data.

Rogers limits the rate at which users can upload material. The idea behind this is that filesharing users then do not then overwhelm all other Internet traffic. Apparently, expanding the network would not solve the problem, so limits must be installed.

Filesharing traffic is designed to overwhelm other traffic. With filesharing traffic expected to triple by the year 2012, ISPs such as Rogers will have their work cut out for them to control the traffic.

Nothing makes me more frustrating than when something works so well for so many years (Ares Galaxy) stops working. The problem? It seems that there’s an issue with Ares not connecting properly when it starts up. Argh!

Ares not connecting means that it takes a lot of time and effort to get up and running in the filesharing arena. When I start up Ares all I want to do is to find some music and start downloading. I don’t want to have to deal with Ares not connecting.

The problem of Ares not connecting comes from the way Ares Galaxy deals with the IPs it ‘remembers’ when it wants to connect to the network on startup. These IPs – called cnodes – are essentially for Ares connecting. When Ares Galaxy doesn’t remember these IPs correctly then it struggles.

This problem seems to be inherent in Ares Galaxy but has been ironed out in later versions. I solved my issue by dumping Ares Galaxy and picking up Ares Vista instead. Ares Ultimate was another candidate that didn’t suffer the problem of Ares not connecting and that would be a good choice too. Actually, I just wish I’d made the swap a while back: the new software is better all around!

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently gave a demo of its new method for hunting down people suspected of downloading copyrighted material through filesharing services and other such means. This new method specifically targets students who have been using filesharing services to share music they shouldn’t have been.

The infamous Media Sentry, the RIAA’s partner in tackling filesharing, uses similar software to that which Internet users have access to for downloading music and movies. Media Sentry first scans filesharing networks for copyrighted material.

Media Sentry then matches the files with records of known pirated songs. If files are matched then Media Sentry will try and match the user’s IP address with that of college campuses. If a match is found there then the files are carefully scrutinized before a letter is sent to the campus. It’s a remarkably simple process, but it is catching out hundreds of students across America. It’s strange, however, that the method specifically targets college campuses.

There was no mention of what action the RIAA takes against people whose IPs are not on college campuses.

Comcast’s recent attempts at reconciliation with the filesharing crowd have been hindered somewhat this week after three fresh lawsuits were filed against the company. This time, the lawsuits allege that Comcast deliberately misled customers by advertising completely unrestricted access to all of the Internet.

This is the latest in a series of complaints against Comcast, which has been accused of blocking traffic to BitTorrent services. It was confirmed that Comcast had been restricting BitTorrent traffic, but then after continually denying the allegations, Comcast came out and announced that it was partnering up with BitTorrent to ensure that traffic to BitTorrent was not hampered.

The latest complaints are attacking Comcast for not outlining that it would meddle with any traffic and not informing customers of its actions. The customers who have filed the complaints basically think that they paid for a service that wasn’t delivered.

We’ll keep you updated with case as we hear more about it.

Interesting news from Great Britain this week. To our knowledge, this is the first initiative of its kind. Filesharing is a common way of getting free music downloads in Great Britain, but this new plan may deter a few people. Although legal action won’t be taken in this particular case, subscribers to Virgin Media’s broadband service might soon have a letter turn up in their mailbox warning them of the dangers of filesharing and illegal music downloads.

The move comes after Virgin Media joins forces with the British Phonographic Institute (BPI). Although personal information will not be shared, the BPI and Virgin Media will send letters to the addresses of people who have been using filesharing websites to download copyrighted material.

No further action will be taken because the BPI thinks that a lot of the people may have had their accounts used for filesharing without their knowledge. We’re dubious about this line of thought, but it is interesting to see an ISP taking action in this way.

“CLEAN! Tested with the top antivirus engines” notes the front page of the Ares Destiny. Is that so? It seems like Dealio – the so called “shopping toolbar” – didn’t come up in any of those tests. While the inference that Dealio is not technically a virus may be true, it certainly could be categorized as malware. An ad-server by trade, Dealio infects your computer and pops up adverts for various items when you least want them. Getting rid of Dealio is not simple and, all in all, it has caused a lot of trouble to a lot of people.

And this is unfortunate because Ares Destiny is a good, solid piece of software that, without this unfortunate addition, could definitely be recommended.

Getting Ares Destiny is easy: the website is clear and uncluttered and the free download links are prominent. Once you have the file installation is a breeze (even the additional ‘bonus’ bits of software – Dealio included – don’t make any fuss about being installed. No real surprise there, though.

Once Ares Destiny is on your machine you will soon find yourself downloading files of your favorite music. The interface is rather bland but definitely functional and it just works. Which is good.

BUT. This functionality and ease of acquisition cannot redeem the software for infecting computers with an ad-server. Call it what you want, Dealio is bad news.

You can get a clean version of Ares with no adware at www.officialares.com

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We’d all but forgotten about the free music downloads you can get from Spiral Frog. Despite having the coolest name of any website offering free music downloads, we never really gave Spiral Frog much of a chance. Well, the website is back in the news this week after announcing that Spiral Frog has teamed up with EMI to offer yet more free music downloads.

This comes at the same time as QTrax announced that it is joining forces with EMI. Spiral Frog is another ad-supported website for free music downloads. With EMI now in the mix, the service becomes a lot stronger and will likely garner a lot more attention from music fans.

The only snag is that the free music downloads are only available to people living in Northern America, which rules out a large proportion of the world.

Spiral Frog has only been around for six months, but already it lays claim to being the third-biggest website for legal free music downloads.