LimeWire - Version History

Version History

Until October 2010, Lime Wire LLC, the New York City based developer of LimeWire, distributed two versions of the program: a basic free version, and an enhanced version, LimeWire PRO, sold for a fee of US$21.95 with 6 months of updates, or $34.95 with 1 year of updates. The company claimed the paid version provides faster downloads and 66% better search results. This is accomplished by facilitating direct connection with up to 10 hosts of an identical searched file at any one time, whereas the free version is limited to a maximum of 8 hosts.

Being free software, LimeWire has spawned forks, including LionShare, an experimental software development project at Penn State University, and Acquisition, a Mac OS X-based gnutella client with a proprietary interface. Researchers at Cornell University developed a reputation management add-in called Credence that allows users to distinguish between "genuine" and "suspect" files before downloading them. An October 12, 2005 report states that some of LimeWire's free and open source software contributors have forked the project and called it FrostWire. The makers of the LimeWire software have now installed a security device that can track most viruses in files.

LimeWire was the second file sharing program after Frostwire to support firewall-to-firewall file transfers, a feature introduced in version 4.2, which was released in November 2004. LimeWire also now includes BitTorrent support, but is limited to 3 Torrent uploads and 3 Torrent downloads, which coexist with ordinary downloads. As of LimeWire 5.0, an instant messenger has been added which uses the XMPP Protocol, an open source communication protocol. Users can now chat and share files with individuals or a group of friends in their buddy list.

From version 5.5.1, LimeWire has added a key activation, which requires the user to enter the unique key before activation the "Pro" version of the software. This has stopped people from illegally downloading the "Pro" versions. However, there are still ways to bypass this security feature, which was done when creating the pirate edition. For example, there are currently cracks available on the internet, and people can continue using the LimeWire Pro 5.5.1 Beta, which also includes AVG for LimeWire and is the first version to include AVG. The most recent stable version of LimeWire is 5.5.16.

Versions of LimeWire prior to 5.5.10 can still connect to the Gnutella network and users of these versions are still able to download files, even though a message is displayed concerning the injunction during the startup process of the software. LimeWire versions 5.5.11 and newer feature an auto-update feature that allowed Lime Wire LLC to disable newer versions of the LimeWire software. Older versions of LimeWire prior to version 5.5.11, however, do not include the auto-update feature and are still fully functional. As a result, neither the RIAA nor Lime Wire LLC have the ability to disable older versions of LimeWire, unless the user chooses to upgrade to a newer version of LimeWire.

On November 10, 2010, a secret group of developers called the "Secret Dev Team" sought to keep the application working by releasing the "LimeWire Pirate Edition". The software is based on LimeWire 5.6 Beta, and is aimed to allow Windows versions to still work and remove the threat of spyware or adware. The exclusive features in LimeWire PRO were also unlocked, and all security features installed by Lime Wire LLC were removed.