A question about limewire downloads...

[TimB]

Have a feeling this will attract a bit of people due to the high generalism of my title...

First of all, Ide like to say hi to everyone, as I am new to this community. Infact, this is my first post. However, I am not new to Limewire. I have been using since, well, probably the first time I heard about it.

What brings me here is this-

I have a question that I think I will find a true answer to by posting in this community.
I have only used limewire for majorly music, and a few odd and end searches, just a program or two. But, I have never downloaded any videos of any sort. Well, maybe one or two, but thats it.

Recently I have refound interest in a certain show I watched way back when.
I did a search on it on LW, and it turned up results for ALL the episodes of the series, which was glorious and just what I expected. But, it also did another thing I highly expected- "waiting on busy hosts" and "needs more sources" was yet again a common hinderance for most the downloads.
Well, I thought to myself "why not search 'i general' for this set of episodes instead of what I previously did- search only for video type files", because perhaps someone had compressed all the episodes (there were less than 30 altogether) into a zip/rar file. If so, then downloading it would be much faster than waiting for sources or non busy hosts.

I did just that, and it turned up several results. I queued several of them, jsut to be sure I got all I wanted.
When some of them were done downloading, I unzipped them, only to find this common amongst the downloaded zip files- a setup.exe file with the name of what was downloaded.

My question is, should I run the setup or not? Are show seasons that have episodes commonly downloaded as a setup.exe, or is this a sure sign of a virus?

Is there a way to find out the contents of the setup.exe file without actually running the .exe? Just to make sure its what I want...

[wondering why]

I would definitely scan the file before you run it as it is more than likely a virus...
Did you check the file on Bitzi before downloading??

This sticky will explain what Bitzi is and how to use it...
How to use Bitzi Web Lookup .. & How to use Magnet Links & Direct Connect/Browse/Chat

Once you know how to use Bitzi you may want to search on there for the files and if you find them you can use the Gnutella magnet link (just scroll down a bit) and limewire will search out the hosts for you...

This sticky will explain about fake files on the network...
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/downlo...h-results.html

This sticky will tell you about file sizes and such that contain viruses...
WARNING: Viruses on network you should be aware of!

[TimB]

Ok, well heres the deal...

First of all, when/before I posted, I did look around this forum for some possible solutions. I did figure out the whole deal about bitzi, and I searched the files on it. None of them showed up on bitzi at all. Something about invalid -something-print (blueprint? bitprint? cant remember the word that was used)

I had downloaded maybe 5 or 7 of these files, and unzipped them. All of them had a setup.exe file.
I didnt run the setup, but I did scan one of them (the exe file) with AVGfree, and nothing was found. Either it was virus free, or AVG couldnt read the contents of the .exe file.

Well, I double clicked and checked a few of the exe files. Clicking it so brought up the setup wizard. Each of them first gave me the license window, and all said that the software would download a third party pop up blocker that cant be uninstalled until after one week of use, blah blah blah.....

I dont know what ALL it said, but all of them pretty much said that same thing.
I didnt follow through with the setup, I cancelled it after reading that license section.

Each of the files are close to each other in file size, but not exactly the same. It could be a matter of bitrate or format of the video- if it contains it at all. Idk.

[wondering why]

I wouldn't trust the zip files...
When something isn't rated on Bitzi, it generally means it either fake or not to be trusted...

The 4.14 Limewire has introduced the capability to download torrents..
Maybe give that ago...

[TimB]

Ok.. those exe files are being avoided. They are likely not what I want.

I updated my limewire, to the one that can do torrents, and I got a question about them... are they normally this slow (0% done, yet hosts have been found and is downloading from them), or is there something more to it?
One of them says "connecting (18 hosts tried)" what does that mean?
Sorry bout the likely to be noobish question, I never used torrents on LW.... nor torrents much at all, for tha matter.

If, for some reason, torrent discusion is not safe/allowed here, I apologize. I dont see why it would though, as LW can DL torrents.

TY

[wondering why]

I'm actually still learning the torrent ropes as well...
I have good speeds sometimes and crap speeds at other times, I find that if a torrent has very slow speeds and not to many hosts, I will cancel it for a day or two and resume it from my incomplete folder at another time and half the time they start zooming along...

Just remember you may get well up into the 100's for hosts...

Have a look through these, it will give you some tips on what the torrent scene is all about...
What is a torrent?
BitTorrent FAQ and Guide
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/283980-post2.html

[TimB]

Hmm, cool.

Well, from what Ive 'learned' so far ( and correct me if Im wrong), there are 2 numbers associated with torrents- seeds and leeches. I THINK seeds are places to download from (sources), and leeches are sources downloading the file. If there are more leeches than seeds, then itll likely be a slow DL.

The less seeds, as well, the slower.

So... that means torrents would fall victim (or be greatly helped by) popularity. More popular a file is (like a hit movie), the more people will downlaod it, meaning there will be much more seeds (the more ppl that DL, the more seeds are 'established', cuz as you DL a torrent, you at the same time upload the file back, creating a seed)
Vice versa with not so popular files. Less seeds, slower DL.

If this is true, then that would explain partially (or perhaps majorly) why my torrent is being 'slow' - its not a very popular series. There were only less than 30 episodes in the whole show series. I think the most seeds I seen on one of the torrent site was about 60.


Like I said, i THINK this is how it works.