By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

A new piece of file-swapping software for Macintosh computers is drawing thousands of downloads by offering peer-to-peer options previously available largely to Windows computers.

Originally released in July, and updated substantially since then, the "Poisoned" file-swapping software allows connections to the hugely popular FastTrack system as well as several smaller networks. That means that for the first time Apple Computer owners have direct access to the vast Kazaa network, which includes millions of people.

"The Macintosh has been very underserved, very neglected," said Julian Ashton, the Atlanta contract programmer who is leading development on the project. "That's why this is an ideal project."

Poisoned's quick rise during the past few months appears to pull the Macintosh closer to the Windows world, in which competition from the free file-swapping world is widely viewed as one of the steepest hurdles for authorized music services like Apple's own iTunes song store or RealNetworks' Rhapsody subscription service.

According to Download.com, a software aggregation site owned by News.com publisher CNET Networks, Poisoned has been downloaded more than 165,000 times in 10 weeks of availability there, making it the second most popular piece of Macintosh software on the site, behind fellow file swapper Limewire.

Several other peer-to-peer programs are available for the Macintosh that tap into FastTrack and eDonkey, the most popular Windows-based networks, but none has grown as quickly as Poisoned. Previously, the most prominent option was the Gnutella-based Limewire, a well-regarded piece of software that nonetheless tapped into a network far smaller than Kazaa's sprawl.

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I'm a windows user but it's good to see that I tunes has some competition now and also that Mac users now have a better option than being forced to pay for overpriced crap..

It will be intresting to see the effect this has on itunes sales Also, could the many mac-using music fans be exposed to enough spoof files and legal threats to join the boycott?

George Z,
Its time to get kazaa, and share your music with the world!

Hey! Now that Mac users can access KaZaA, the RIAA can go sue that New York artist for downloading rap "songs." Go get her, Cary-sue!

...assclown.

Actually, we Mac folks have a great p2p program for a few years now, we just aren't publishing its name to keep the RIAA out of it. But alas, eventually we know it will draw their attention, but for now, we are loving life!

Go Go Go Macs now we'll see the other 3% of the computer users that weren't there be there, now only if we could get every OS using fast track then go invisisble, and bayTSP and the other RIAA tracking hounds go where did they go? lol maybe we could call it the Invisible web.
but by and large this is still a war they waged with the consumers now is the time to boycott and spread the message to the mainstream,and also support your local musicians and buy indies and DL indies.

So what about the hip hop granny from back in the day?

lol...

Great. The more people sharing the better.

Unfortunately, this program requires Max OS 10.2, which I haven't upgraded to avoid having to spend another $2000 on the new ProTools.

So I went and got a copy of LimeWire, which runs just fine on Mac OS 9.

I'm now officially a P2P user, sharing only a dozen or so songs right now, but I think I know where to find more. And none of them belong to the RIAA.

Hahahaha

How difficult would it be to set a file sharing system to be used by registered users of this site? Or is that a road the site doesn't need or want to go down yet? Just curious....

FastTrack is an infearior protocol, If Gnutella had the dame number of users as the FasTrack/KaZaA protocol, the number of transferrs and sources, along with total node horision and valitity of files would far excede the FastTrack network's, i know it, and along the means of that G2 is even better than the origional Gnutella, and one key feature is that the G2 network is for the most part fully scaleable, and searches over 30,000 nodes within 3-5 min. KaZaA can't even compair.

FewInhibitions: If we wanted to we could set up a private WASTE network or use Direct Connect (DC via DCCPP (open source)) hub pool and share indi music and only let members join, or we could share music files on G2/ED2K/Gnutella, and possibly FastTrack via Magnet and ED2K links, post the links on this site as alternate download sources, and encurage everyone to get Magnet and/or ED2K link enabled clients that run on the G2, Gnutella, ED2K net, Overpeer net, or FastTrack networks, such as Sharaza (works on three of 'em and is good for newbies anlong with some more advanced users). so it is possible, not sure if it will happen, if it does happen it will be because of natural progression form sever oriantated distribution to a p2p model.

haha this is pretty funny, poisoned has been out for a while, yet they report that us mac users have "just joined" the kazaa network, there have been many programs that have allowed connection to fast track. This is just the first one to grab some attention. Limewire has been out for years, I used it on my old iMac nearly 2 years ago!

George, make sure you share every Electric Gypsy tune you ever come across!

welcome aboard the p2p choo choo!

Shmoo