Limewire is the most popular peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing program on the Internet. It’s written in the Java programming language and runs on a wide variety of platforms including Windows, Mac, and Linux. Any type of file can be shared, such as music, movies, photos, etc.

Limewire uses the BitTorrent protocol and the Gnutella network to provide services. Users connect to each other directly (hence the peer-to-peer designation) without the need of a central server. Each user specifies the folders and files available for download from his/her system.

Installing Limewire Basic is fairly straightforward. You’ll have to get past a bunch of warnings about the perils of P2P. The only thing that’s loaded is the program and Java runtime environment. If you decide to uninstall Limewire, there will be some Java files left behind, and the Java runtime environment will also remain.

Free music usually brings questions of legal issues to mind. That’s because several years ago, the RIAA launched a legal challenge to music sharing sites and the people that downloaded music without paying for it. The claim was copyright infringement, and record producers pushed the cases as far as legally possible in order to stop the practice.

So can you still download free music without all the legal hassles? The answer is yes. But you have to be sure that the songs are made available for free download by the artists.

Music blogs are a good source for legal free music downloads. You can read about an artist and probably be able to download a couple of free MP3s. There are a lot of these blogs out there.