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Old May 4th, 2007
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Default How to spot and avoid fake search results.

BearShare is excellent for spotting the fakes because it can display loads of
info that LimeWire can't. In the search view enable all the columns except
"Type" and lay them out in an order that makes sense to you. When you
search for movies or other stuff that is often faked click on the tiny plus sign
icon beside the filename to see the details of all the sources and you will
quickly learn the difference between faked results and the real thing.

A few things to watch out for are:
  • results that come from large numbers of LimeWire versions only,
  • a lot of different IP addresses but the same GUID,
  • long lists of sources but few with GUIDS (There should be at least one GUID
    for every ten without)
  • or a complete lack of other nonessential data like created dates, browse or
    chat icons,
  • and sometimes the filenames won't even match each other
    (worms are especially prone to this one).

You can also use this technique in the downloads view, which is a good idea
because BearShare will find a lot more sources as the downloads proceed,
uncovering a lot of sources whose file names don't match.

When you get a lot of results and fakes seem to dominate the list, sort by the
number of sources and start examining results that only get roughly 2-20
sources and a variety of software versions other than LimeWire. Right click on
each one and pick "Bitzi ticket" and your web browser will show you a report
on them. If it's the right one or Bitzi has no info, consider it a likely candidate.

When you find likely candidates:
  • Click on the Size column for that file and hit Control-C on your keyboard to
    save the exact size.
  • Click on the Advanced button (right beside the Search button at the top of
    the view) and the advanced search box will open up.
  • Click on the Filters tab, activate the two size filters, use Control-V to copy
    the exact size into both and change the KB (which means kilobytes) in the
    units box beside each number to B (for bytes).
  • When you click on the Search button to close that advanced search box only
    that file will be found and the fakes can't drown your search.
There may be a few extra files show up but concentrate on the one with the
most sources because the others with few or one source are probably just
damaged copies of the same file.

Wait for the search to finish and:
  • Put a finger on the "F" key, (don't press it yet!)
  • Double click on the file and you will go directly to the download view and the
    new download will show up immediately.
  • Quickly right-click on it and hit "F" before the right click menu even shows up.
  • Now click on the little plus sign and watch to see if the sources found still
    match what you wanted to download.
That will get BearShare to search for even more sources, but this time by the
precise hash instead of a filename. You'll have to be quick to do this because
BearShare will be trying to start the download and will ignore that "F" if even
one source has started downloading. Don't be surprised if that search which
gave you only a few sources at first turns out to have up to 1500 sources.
BearShare is especially good at finding more sources during downloads.

By the way. For the most dependable and powerful version of BearShare,
see this thread: Sticky: BearShare has been sabotaged.
This is my favourite version. I use it all the time.
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