Introduction

Welcome to BearShare!

BearShare is designed to let you share files with everyone on the Internet, and download files that other people are sharing. The program works with all types of files, and lets you search for files that contain specific words or phrases.

BearShare is built on the Gnutella protocol. The basic operation of this protocol allows you to send your searches for files to computers you are connected to. Those computers in turn, send your search to their neighbors, and so on. Computers (or hosts) which receive your search will check their shared files and return any matching files back to you. When you have received search results, you may download the files from the other computers. Downloading of files takes place outside of the Gnutella network. You do not need to be connected to other hosts before you begin downloading a file (unless the host is behind a firewall).

Only the files that you specify in your shared folder are visible to other users who are searching. If you do not allow uploads, your shared files will not be returned as search results to other users. Like other Gnutella enabled programs, BearShare does not depend on a central server to allow you to search or download files. If a host goes down from the network, your ability to search for files remains unaffected.

You have complete control over the number of hosts, if any, are allowed to connect to your computer, whether or not they can download your shared files, and which files you want to share based on their location and file type.