Yaga - Ok. Yaga. A program that I have never heard of before, but I was recommended to try it from a friend of a friend. So here I am. Anyways, here's the quick stats of the programs. Yaga is, of course, a file-sharing program that lets you share pretty much any media you want. Something that you might find interesting is that it describes itself as the smallest P2P program available (at 198k). Which is a pretty cool fact. Being so small, you can guarantee yourself that the program will run without taking too much memory from your PC. So far so good...

I have a lot of other file-sharing programs to use on my PC, and so I didn't think I was going to use this one that much after the review. So when it asked me for an e-mail address, I thought "what the hey, I'll just use a fake one, after all, they'll probably spam me like everyone else does..." when I soon found out that they'll send you an e-mail to that "address" verifying that the e-mail address you used to activate your account on Yaga. Remember that if you ever download and use this program.

When I first saw the actual client of the program, I noticed how similar it looked to that of Audio Galaxy, only a more stripped down interface. And then when I searched for a certain type of media, I also realized that it functioned a lot like it too. This means automatically that the program is more of a web-based affair in comparison to a program such as Morpheus.

Anyways, onto the layout. The layout of the program is very neat and simple (maybe a little too simple). For that reason, this program won't win the award for the best design in the world. There aren't that many advanced options either on the actual client, which is disappointing. The searches also, aren't that advanced either. At first I thought that the client wouldn't let you search for separate types of media (eg. audio, video etc.), but when it directed me to the web after I hit search, I found that I could search for these different types of media. But then, when I did start searching for media on the web (say, Linkin Park), the search results that came up were pretty poor. There were a few results that displayed what I was looking for, but the program also returned with results such as: Jurassic Park and South Park. Dodgy....

The layout on the actual web is quite different though. When you see it, you'll automatically think "this looks familiar". And this is quite true - it is a complete rip-off of CNet's Download.com page. This isn't that much of a bad thing though, as this does make it somewhat easier to navigate the site. So no complaints there.

But here is where the complaints will come in. You see, I never actually successfully downloaded ONE file. And that's the main thing that's gonna bring this program RIGHT down the rankings. I think its probably just my computer, although mail me if you have the same problems, but when I click on "Download Now", a pop-up box comes up with an applet that's supposed to load up on my PC. But didn't. I kept trying to solve this problem by trying different files from different users. But to no avail. Before this problem arised, I did manage to get past this, but I was halted by a screen saying that the file that was displayed in the results section is currently unavailable, and please try to download it later. But what I need to know is WHY DISPLAY THE FREAKING FILE IN THE SEARCH RESULTS IF ITS UNAVAILABLE??? Someone deserves a slap for that.          

SUMMARY: Well, this would have been a good program to use. In fact it probably IS a good program to use if I got it to work properly, but this matter was out of my hands. You should think of this program to be Audio Galaxy, but without the restriction of only being able to search for MP3s. Oh, and less features and poorer searches. Hmm. Despite the score I'm gonna give it, by all means, try the program and see if you get it working properly.

Pros : Smallest file-sharing client on the web (true y'know :) - Little computer RAM used - Web based interface does look organised and quite decent

Cons : Well....I didn't successfully download one file :( - Web based interface can make searching and browsing a little slower - Probably contains spyware.

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