NOTE: Napster was the first victim of the RIAA's plans to eradicate file-sharing from the world. Damn them. Unfortunately, but in the end, inevitably, Napster has been forced to shut down its servers for good after financial difficulties much due to the cost of the lawsuit against the record industry. I'd like to thank Shawn Fanning (the creator of Napster) for changing the way we distribute music forever. Napster has gone, but the idea lives on....

Napster - Its a sad ending really. Napster once was the greatest Internet invention since...err...the Internet. And now? Thanks to our great friends at the record industry who are ripping us off everytime we purchase a CD or tape, it is virtually useless to get the files we want.

But cheer up everyone! It isn't all doom and gloom. Even though the files we want are unavailable to get, Napster will remain in our hearts forever, and will now be known as the place to go to go to listen to the latest music from unsigned bands. And that's about all it can do at the moment. The features and layout of the program still remain the same since the last couple of updates. There is an internal player (see screenshot) that you can still play all your old files on. And this internal player is a lot more easier to use then, say, Winamp, as it is just your no-frills player that does the job it is intended to do. And does it well too.

The thing you have to remember about Napster is, that every file-sharing program that has been reviewed on my site, and I mean EVERY one, has been created in Napster's shadow. Napster was the don, the king of all file-sharing programs.

But anyways, enough about the past. Let's not be sentimental about it. Napster is a great file-sharing program in terms of design, presentation and structure. It's incredibly easy to use, perhaps the most easiest of all file-sharing programs available on the net. The design of it is purposely made so that it takes up as little computer memory as possible. I have used many file-sharing programs before, and Napster is the only one that has never made my computer crash once.

Other great things about Napster is the fact that it connects you to the server almost immediately. You don't have to worry about choosing the right IP address to get the files you want. The searches are also full of various options in which to search by (bitrate, connection speed of user, etc) and are also supplied to you very quickly (see screenshot). It really makes searching for the files you want incredibly easy. Well, that isn't very surprising at all as it was Napster that brought the mass market forward to the world of file-sharing.

The layout of Napster makes it incredibly easy to navigate around. There are tabs at the top of the window which act as a toolbar in which to search for files, chat in various music rooms, listen to your own files, and check to see if any of your mates are online using the Hotlist. (see screenshot below).
The Hotlist is also another great feature to talk about. With it, you can browse all the files of one user, which I find really interesting as you get to know the type of music that person is into, chat to that user etc.

Now the downside of Napster. Firstly, Napster only lets you share MP3 files. This is a terribly bad thing at all, in fact, its probably a good thing as that is what people downloaded the program for in the first place. Hmm......lets try another, shall we? :) Anyways, a feature lacking in Napster which is constantly appearing in various file-sharing programs today is the fact that you cannot resume broken downloads. Everyone knows how annoying it is when you have spent half-an-hour downloading a file and then you get disconnected because some clown was trying to get through on the phoneline. Its enough to make you wanna scream.

And the inevitable downfall of Napster is the fact that YOU CAN'T GET ANY FILES ANYMORE. Well, you CAN get the files, just not the ones you want (see screenshot), which sorta makes using Napster pretty pointless, in spite of everything I've said. And once the membership service starts and people will have to pay to use Napster, I ask you only this - who's gonna pay a monthly fee to get only MP3s that are non-copyrighted, or from unsigned bands. The answer? No-one.

The record industry was successful in taking down Napster. Little did they know that their actions has caused an entire race of new programs that are virtually impossible to shutdown. Bwah-ha-ha-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

Hmm......'scuse me.    

SUMMARY: Napster was easily the best program ever to use to get MP3s, and nothing more. Before songs started being blocked, there was a MASSIVE user base, which enabled you to get almost any rare file you could think of. And I really mean EVERY rare file. Unfortunately, this has become a thing of the past. Finding songs from well-know artists is very hard, even if you deliberately try to fool the filtering system by typing in the name of the file incorrectly. So, Napster - use it if you are looking for new music from the up and coming acts. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Pros : Good internal audio player - extremely easy to use - cool Hotlist feature - well known - good search facility

Cons : No resumable downloads - only MP3 files available - Upcoming membership service - At the end of the day, its the files you want, and you can no longer get them.

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