Piolet - "What the hell's this? It looks just like Blubster?! THE BASTARDS HAVE RIPPED PABLO OFF! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If this sounds like you, don't fret. Just pick up the phone, dial for the operator and ask for your nearest mental institute.

Ok, lemme explain. Firstly, if you don't know who Pablo is, he one of the saviours of the next generation of file-sharing. Pablo Soto from Spain developed the file-sharing program hilariously named "Blubster". I've been keeping an eye on this for sometime now (as you can see from the news) due to the fact that it had SOOOOOO much potential to become the new and best Napster Alternative around. It looked every bit the part - the search engine, the community-based feel, the look......and so we all waited desperately for the third beta (dubbed 2.0). This promised to have every feature present (such as a hotlist (buddylist), multi-sourced downloads etc.) to be the next big thing. We waited for over half a year. And it came.

And it sucked. There were sooooo many bugs in the system, the program kept crashing, and quite a few people said they couldn't connect. Maybe next time eh?

But then.....*DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUH!* The program Piolet is released (pronounced Pee-oh-lay). When I was looking at the screenshots of it, the very thoughts mentioned above were running through my mind. I was just about to pick up the phone to call the operator when I read on a message board that this actually WASN'T a rip-off from Blubster. This was the next version. Pablo apparently (for whatever reason) regrouped, and licensed his technology to this project. So how was this version different? Well, all the bugs that were in the previous system had been removed, and this was finally shaping out to be the client that we were all hoping for...

*Sigh* Ok, let me get started with the review. Piolet is a MP3-only file-sharing program that runs on a decentralised network (it connects to the same network as Blubster). What makes this client special though is that it is supposed to be TRULY decentralised and so cannot be shutdown. File-sharing networks like KaZaA's have shown that it may be possible to block people out from it after the Morpheus fiasco. In that incident, KaZaA was able to block out people running the Morpheus client from the network showing that maybe there is some way of controlling the network.

Connection to the network begins immediately when you start the program. This is done fairly painlessly, and it hasn't taken me longer than 5 seconds so far to connect (I am on broadband, mind). On the first run, you'll be asked to provide a username, state what connection to the Internet you have, etc. You'll then be presented with Piolet's simple interface. There are 8 tabs running across the top of the screen. One that may catch your eye is the security tab. By using Piolet, you apparently get a free trial of using the McAfee Security Centre virus protection suite. I've already got a virus scanner on my machine so I didn't bother trying it out. One quick point, you may have noticed the size of the installer of Piolet being something like 4.2 Meg. I've been told that this is due to the McAfee bundle that's supplied with the client.

With the tabbed interface, you'll find that navigating around is fairly easy. Piolet has a simple layout, one that is strangely familiar to what Napster used to look like. The "My Music", "Transfers" and "Search" tabs are ones that really bring a tear to my eye. If you do have a look at the screen shots of Napster in its review, you'll see the similarities. The "My Music" tab contains an internal player (see screenshot). Also, at the base of the window is a playlist feature. You can even open and save playlists made in Piolet which is incredibly handy. Personally, I only use the internal player to listen to the file I'm currently downloading as it doesn't match the sound quality that's provided with Winamp for long-term listening, but hey - it's great anyway.

The search window is very basic on first view. There are fields to search for by artist and title (doesn't really matter if you put both in one field and nothing in the other btw). There is an "Advanced" button though which you can click to reveal more options to narrow your search by (see screenshot). Once again, like Napster, you can specify what bitrate you wish to search by and what the size of the file is that you're looking for. Unlike what Napster used to be able to do, you can't search for files which people have on a specific connection for faster speeds however. The reason being that Piolet rarely displays the speed of users for some reason. Whether this is a bug in the system or not, I'm not sure (and if it is, I hope it's resolved soon) but it is kind of annoying. The searches are always relevant to the query and the results are displayed literally in seconds.

The transfer window looks just as simple (see screenshot). It's split in half to display both the uploads and downloads that are going on. The download speeds are excellent. The main reason this is so is because Piolet is the latest client to introduce multi-sourced downloading.  I usually get connected to other users almost immediately, and the speeds are quite high. They are definitely comparable to the speeds you find on the Fasttrack clients (KaZaA/Grokster) but whether they are as fast is debateable. The reliability of obtaining a file isn't as high as KaZaA or Grokster however, and this is mainly down to the number of users on the network (I'll come onto this later).

One great quality of Piolet that separates it from the rest is the fact that it really has a sense of community around it. The major features that allow this is the addition of a chat room, and a *drum roll*..........hotlist (found on the community tab believe it or not). It's fantastic that Piolet has managed to feature a hotlist in it's client as its something that has been missing from most recent file-sharing programs around (see screenshot). The hotlist doesn't work as fantastically brilliantly as Napster's did (yes, I liked it a lot back then) due to the decentralised nature of the network. It is kinda annoying as if you add someone to your hotlist, there is no guarantee that they'll appear online on your hotlist ever again (due to changing IP addresses with dial-up users and other factors). I really REALLY do hope that Pablo finds some way around this, but whether there is one remains to be seen. Also, what is supposed to happen on the hotlist is when someone is online, the dot next to their name is supposed to appear yellow, but even when they are, it never seems to for me. I'm guessing this is another small bug in the system.

Piolet is the first MP3-only program (that I know of) to implement weblinks. Basically, you can be given links on a webpage which, when clicked, will automatically place the file in your transfer window - eliminating the need to search for it. This is a cool feature which, when eDonkey implemented it, increased its population immensely due to its affiliate site ShareReactor.com. Another useful feature in Piolet is the ability to add people in your hotlist by simply knowing their IP. To do this, all you have to do is double-click on the status bar at the bottom of the screen and enter it in. Pretty sweet if I don't say so myself...

The final word then. Piolet, and I've said this many times before, really has the potential to becoming the next and best Napster alternative available on the Internet. So why isn't it already? Weeeeeeeeeell, unfortunately Piolet only has around (at the time of writing) 60,000 users on its servers at any one time on an average day, with figures sometimes reaching just over 100,000. Now, while this may sound like enough, its no way near as many users as Napster once had, and is only around 5% of the total amount of users you'll find on KaZaA these days. For that reason, it is hard to find rare MP3s that you'd expect to find on KaZaA and this is the main reason why I won't be using it as much. Only time will tell if Piolet will ever be as big as Napster once was, but it has all the ingredients it needs to do so...

SUMMARY: Piolet seems to be what everyone was looking for when Napster's servers were forced to be closed - a client that was as simple to use and couldn't ever be shut down. Whether it's arrived a bit too late in the day to cut a share in the amount of users on the KaZaA empire remains to be seen. With a few new beta releases, a couple of the niggles sorted out and ultimately a higher population of users on the network, this WILL be the best Napster alternative available. But until then...

Pros : Simple interface - Easy to use - Feels very community based - Multi-sourced downloads  - Hotlist/Chat features - MP3 Weblinks - No Spyware/Adware

Cons : Lack of users - Hotlist not completely functional - Some little bugs in the system

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