WinMX

     WinMX has many strengths. It allows users to search for songs by title, artist, and both. It also allows the results to be sorted based on anything from the alphabetical order of the file name, the file size, or the speed of the internet connection of the person from whom you might wish to download. Also included are the abilities to browse through a person's shared files, and a "hot list" feature (a low end instant messenging system), and chat.

     While these features are nice, there are drawbacks to this program. First of all, it isn't very intuitive to learn. The controls can be a bit awkward to learn for newbies, especially those who do not have any experience with any other file swapping system. Also, some of the nice features that WinMX offers do not even work, at least not in a manner that I have been able to discern. These include the chat and hot list features. Combined, both have offered me a total of zero minutes of entertainment.

     One other thing worth noting is the low system requirements for this program. They only require that you be running Windows 9x or later, and have at least IE4 if running Windows 95 or NT. The recommended requirements of running a Pentium 166 MHz with 64 megs of RAM (or better to both, of course) is also quite low. But this recommendation is also partly unneccessary. I was able to run this program on my PC which is running Windows 95 with IE5, on a Pentium 166 MHz, and only 16 megs of RAM. At the same time, I was also able to browse the web (though slowly because my small bandwith was hogged by WinMX), and run other programs like AOL instant messenger.

     Overall, WinMX is a very nice program. Its flaws pale in comparison to its benefits (free music, after all, is very nice). The other good news is that this program is still fairly young. It is only currently in version 2.6. Hopefully, the people at Frontcode Technologies who made this can improve upon an excellent start. The other good news: it isn't going to be taken down any time soon like Napster.