Shareaza is not a commercial music download service akin to iTunes or Rhapsody. It's a peer-to-peer application like Bittorrent, eDonkey, Kazaa, Limewire, etc. for sharing files between peers across the Internet.
Contrary to the previous answer, the use of Shareaza - or any other P2P program - to download music (or any other type of file) is not inherently illegal. There is plenty of music out there that is copyrighted or copylefted or otherwise licensed under terms that effectively make it "free". Case in point, music distributed under the Creative Commons license, http://creativecommons.org/audio But, if such programs are used to download music found lets say on the Billboard top 100 list, you may run afoul of groups like the RIAA or IFPI.
BTW, it is true that there tends to be a higher likelihood of encountering viruses, trojans, and other malware when using P2P software. But that would be limited to files that are executable, contain embedded scripts or macros (i.e. word documents), or archive formats that contain the previous two examples. Generally, common sense precautions can minimize the impact of downloading such files... Such as not opening/launching them, or not downloading them in the first place.
It's a great program for viruses and other malware. And make sure you have a good lawyer, since using it to download music is illegal. If you get sued a good lawyer can negotiate a settlement that may save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
Verified answer
Shareaza is not a commercial music download service akin to iTunes or Rhapsody. It's a peer-to-peer application like Bittorrent, eDonkey, Kazaa, Limewire, etc. for sharing files between peers across the Internet.
Contrary to the previous answer, the use of Shareaza - or any other P2P program - to download music (or any other type of file) is not inherently illegal. There is plenty of music out there that is copyrighted or copylefted or otherwise licensed under terms that effectively make it "free". Case in point, music distributed under the Creative Commons license, http://creativecommons.org/audio But, if such programs are used to download music found lets say on the Billboard top 100 list, you may run afoul of groups like the RIAA or IFPI.
If you want to learn more about Shareaza specifically, I suggest you go to http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareaza
BTW, it is true that there tends to be a higher likelihood of encountering viruses, trojans, and other malware when using P2P software. But that would be limited to files that are executable, contain embedded scripts or macros (i.e. word documents), or archive formats that contain the previous two examples. Generally, common sense precautions can minimize the impact of downloading such files... Such as not opening/launching them, or not downloading them in the first place.
It's a great program for viruses and other malware. And make sure you have a good lawyer, since using it to download music is illegal. If you get sued a good lawyer can negotiate a settlement that may save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.