LimeWire makes a comeback as an unofficial Pirate Edition

Shortly after shutting down after years of legal turmoil, LimeWire has been resurrected by an independent group that also made several key improvements to the program.

The new LimeWire Pirate Edition has been modified to remove all adware and spyware that was shipped with the original version of the program.

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Furthermore, the new Pirate Edition is being shared via BitTorrent and has been put together by "the piratical monkeys", who are interested in helping out the community. The new version should be good for a while without an update or patch, but the hacker community will be paying close attention.

LimeWire officially met its end in late October, but at that time, there were only whispers of a possible pirated LimeWire launch.

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The new and improved LimeWire has several key improvements made to woo users back. New updates include LimeWire PRO features available for free, no more dependence on LimeWire's servers, and the remote settings have also been disabled.

Even though the record and movie industries won't necessarily like this news, they likely expected that something similar to this would happen. The RIAA is expected to continue pushing for a three-strikes law -- or some type of legal effort to prevent repeat offenders from escaping without punishment. Until then, they will continue to try and rip down the P2P infrastructure, even if it appears to be a useless effort.

Since being shut down, interest in other P2P programs has increased, however, other services are concerned they'll face increased attention from copyright groups.

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After the MPAA handled LimeWire in court, music publishers also took legal aim at the peer-to-peer file sharing program earlier in 2010.

A quick test run of the new LimeWire yielded a faster, cleaner looking program that doesn’t have added bloatware and spyware to bog down users’ PCs. Even so, users still open themselves up to possible punishment from their ISPs if caught illegally sharing files, even if the music industry isn’t targeting individual file sharers with lawsuits anymore.

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