Sharing files over the Internet is still the most common activity. For better or for worse, today there are millions of users sharing and downloading all kinds of files, both legal and copyrighted. And, for this, all we need is to have a program that allows us to both search for files and download them to our computer, nothing more. And one of the most popular programs in this area is Ares Galaxy .
Ares Galaxy, popularly known as Ares, is a P2P exchange program that was very popular around the 2000s. In 2005 it was almost at the height of the great eMule, mainly due to how easy it was to find files on the network and how fast they got off. However, although its popularity has dropped a lot (mainly because there are better alternatives), today it is still one of the most used programs, especially in Spain, when searching for and downloading files from the Internet.
This P2P client originally used the Gnutella network. However, its developers decided to create their own independent and decentralized network. To do this, they mounted a P2P architecture of the leaf nodes type with supernodes. Thanks to it, Ares has a search system similar to that of the P2P Gnutella network and the Kad network, a system that does not depend on servers.
Viruses and adware
When this program was first launched in 2002, its developers did it alongside adware , adware. This adware appeared during the installation wizard and gave users the option to install it or not. Just like many programs do now. However, shortly thereafter the developers decided that it was an unethical practice, and removed the adware.
This program was written in the Delphi language , and was originally distributed as proprietary software, although in 2005 it made the leap to free software (probably for fear of a copyright lawsuit). This caused many users to take the code and modify it to create their own variants. And many of them, unfortunately, hid adware or malware inside. The number of unofficial versions of Ares with malware is very high, even today. You have to be very careful.
In addition, Ares has been heavily criticized by the community for the large number of viruses that were within its network. Not depending on servers, anyone could use it to distribute their files. And with a little social engineering, you could fool any unsuspecting user into actually downloading a virus from, say, a song or movie. Ares does not have filters, nor does it make the downloads go through the antivirus before saving them to the PC. Therefore, common sense gains great prominence when using this download software.
Characteristics of Ares Galaxy
Without a doubt, the best feature of this program is its own P2P network . Similar to Kad or Gnutella, this network allows all users to share files with everyone, without having to depend on servers or databases. The searches are in broadcast mode, where we can see all the files that are available within the network. This network also allows chat rooms to be set up in true IRC style.
Another of its best features, and one of the ones that made it gain such popularity, is its search engine. While other similar programs depended on websites to search for files (such as the torrent network), Ares has a very fast and easy to use search engine from which we will be able to find literally all kinds of files. We can also apply filters to better refine searches. The DHT (Distributed Hash Table) system allows you to instantly index all files shared by all users so that other sources can be taken to download the same file.
The files could be downloaded directly from the search engine, or from their Hashlinks. A hashlinks is a link that is associated with a single file, specifically its hash. In this way, we make sure that we are downloading a specific file and not, for example, a fake. These links were the ones used to share files through chat, messaging, forums and websites.
Ares’ downloads have always been faster than those of its rivals. And, although it also had its own priority system, thanks to the fact that each node acted as client and server at the same time, the routes between points were considerably shortened. Files take much less time to download than those of other programs. In addition, it has an integrated multimedia player that allows us to preview the file that we are downloading before it ends. A very useful way to make sure that what we are downloading is a real file and not an unwanted movie.
This included player also allows us to access a large number of online radio stations from around the world and television channels.
This program also works as a P2P download client . We can add torrent files or magnet links to download them from it through the BitTorrent network. All downloads will remain in the program until they are completed, but if they have been completed, upon restarting the program, the torrent downloads will disappear. It is not a program to make seed.
How to download files with Ares
In order to download files without problems with this program, the most important thing is to give it permission in the Windows 10 firewall (or the firewall we use). When we open the program for the first time we will be able to see a firewall window where it will ask us for permission to access the network. We must grant it to you before we can start using the program.
The first section that we will find within this program will be the search engine, one of the most important. Here we will be able to write the term that we want to search for, in addition to choosing a category to filter the data and to obtain more accurate results. The searches will be classified in different tabs, so we can have several open at the same time.
Each download will have a star rating , which can help us figure out which files are the most reliable and of the best quality (although we should not fully trust these ratings). To start downloading a file, simply double click on it to add it to the download tab.
Here, the program will start searching for all pairs across the network. And thanks to DHT we can download files from any source, even from other networks, such as the BitTorrent network.
When the download is finished, it will be marked with the completed icon, and we can find the file in the download folder that we have configured in Ares.
It is true that the number of files that we can find in your search engine is quite limited compared to what we could find in the past. And that the download speed is no longer so great. But Ares is still an excellent download client that we can use perfectly even in Windows 10.
Download and install Ares on Windows 10
The official website of Ares Galaxy has not existed for a long time . Its developers left the code posted on SourceForge so that any interested developer could access it. In addition, within this portal we can find all the official versions of this program.
Although there are websites that offer us to download very new versions, updated in 2020, in reality the original version of this program has been updated since 2017 . The latest official version of this program (AresRegular 2.4.6) can be found at this link . The way to know that this is indeed the official version of Ares is that the owner of the repository is lap3k, the original developer of this program. And it is not a false profile, since it has been attached to this portal since 2005. This is the only way to download and install Ares in Windows 10 safely, without taking unnecessary risks.
And what about the more modern versions? Being an open source program, there are developers who have continued to maintain this program on their own. In March 2020, for example, version 2.5.4 of this download client was released. However, the number of websites that allow us to download false versions of this program, or that hide malware, is immense. The first thing we recommend is to be wary of all the download sites in Spain . If we want to take a risk with one of these more updated versions, it is better to resort to a website like MajorGeeks , which is at least legit. Despite this, without going any further, this version of Ares triggers Windows SmartScreen alarms as potentially unwanted software. There must be a reason.
Therefore, once again, we recommend you exclusively download the original version of SourceForge. Version that does not generate warnings.
Other clients
Such was the success of Ares that in a very short time a large number of clones of this program appeared. Although many had bad intentions, others did manage to gain the trust of users. Some of the best known are:
- Warez P2P , a clone of the original Ares.
- KCeasy, a giFT based client.
- jAres P2P , an alternative to make use of this network written in Java.
