FrostWire is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

BitTorrent client first released in September 2004, as a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...

LimeWire LimeWire was a free software, free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Microsoft Windows, Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris OS, Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of O ...

. It was initially very similar to LimeWire in appearance and functionality, but over time developers added more features, including support for the BitTorrent protocol. In version 5, support for the

Gnutella Gnutella is a peer-to-peer network protocol. Founded in 2000, it was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model. In June 2005, Gnutella's population was 1.81 million computer ...

network was dropped entirely, and FrostWire became a BitTorrent-only client.

History

FrostWire, a BitTorrent client (formerly a Gnutella client), is a collaborative, open-source project licensed under the GPL-3.0-or-later license. In late 2005, concerned developers of LimeWire's open source community announced the start of a new project fork "FrostWire" that would protect the developmental source code of the LimeWire client. FrostWire has evolved to replace LimeWire's BitTorrent core for that of Vuze, the Azureus BitTorrent Engine, and ultimately to remove the LimeWire's Gnutella core to become a 100% BitTorrent client powered by the libtorrent library through FrostWire's jLibtorrent Java wrapper library since August 2014.

Gnutella client

The project was started in September 2004 after LimeWire's distributor considered adding "blocking" code in response to

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

pressure. The RIAA threatened legal action against several peer-to-peer developers including LimeWire as a result of the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

's decision in ''

MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. ''MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.'', 545 U.S. 913 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled unanimously that the defendants, peer-to-peer file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast (maker of Morpheus), cou ...

''. The second beta release of FrostWire was available in the last quarter of 2005.

Multiprotocol P2P client

Since version 4.20.x, FrostWire was able to handle torrent files and featured a new junk filter. Also, in version 4.21.x support was added for most Android devices.

BitTorrent client

Since version 5.0 (2011), FrostWire relaunched itself as a BitTorrent application, so those using the Gnutella network either have to use version 4, or switch to another client altogether.

Preview before download

Since version 6.0, FrostWire adds preview files before download.

Adware and malware

Since around 2008 some members of the FrostWire community began to notice the distribution of the optional

Ask.com Ask.com (originally known as Ask Jeeves) is a question answering–focused e-business founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California, Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky, from ...

toolbar in the Windows installers. On September 9, 2015 the official knowledge base claimed that FrostWire no longer distributes the Ask.com toolbar, and provided instructions on how to remove it. Around 2019, Frostwire has been noted to install other adware and malware, such as the browser hijacker WebDiscover.

FrostWire 4 Legacy

Software based in the original FrostWire source (gnutella enabled) still exists, for example WireShare, a gnutella client that forked from the original FrostWire/LimeWire source in 2010, with the purpose of keeping the

network alive and to maintain a continuation of the original project (without adware, spyware and backdoors).

FrostWire for Android

FrostWire/FrostWire Plus for Android (also known as FrostWire Downloader) is a native Android-based BitTorrent client, with additional support for downloading videos and music from YouTube. The application is based on the P2P BitTorrent network, with support for downloading music, movies, applications, as well as other content. The application also has support for downloading music from the cloud-based service SoundCloud, and includes a featured Music Library & Music Player. The most recent version, 2.1.9 build 637, was made available on March 5, 2020.

Features

Features present in FrostWire include: * True In-App Search (Cloud Downloader + BitTorrent Client). FrostWire currently directly searches the following sources: YouTube, SoundCloud, Archive.org, PirateBay.org (finishing and list all). Results matching user's keywords are shown inside the app, separated into tabs by file type (Audio, Video, ....). If there are too many search results present, user can then filter the results by (keyword, size...) * Magnet link support *

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...

support *

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

Drop protection (optional) * Create and seed a torrent * Preview Files from Cloud Sources (YouTube / SoundCloud) can be fully previewed/streamed before downloading files from the BitTorrent Network can be consumed as soon as a sufficient amount of fist chunks is downloaded * Media Library with Playlist Support * Audio Player * Video Player (desktop only) * Lyrics display support if lyrics are included in mp3 files (Desktop only) * Localized for 20+ languages * Multiplatform: Android,

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, Mac,

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

* Jlibtorrent: A swig Java interface for libtorrent is by FrostWire developers. * Media Browser on Android.

References

External links

*
FrostWire Blog

FrostWire Changelog
* {{DEFAULTSORT:FrostWire BitTorrent clients Gnutella clients Cross-platform software Windows file sharing software MacOS file sharing software Free file sharing software Free BitTorrent clients Android (operating system) software BitTorrent clients for Linux Free and open-source Android software Free software programmed in Java (programming language) Software forks Java platform software 2004 software Peer-to-peer file sharing