After buying a MacBook Pro I discovered that SoulSeek, which had become an integral part of my everyday Windows computer experience, is not available for Mac. A search for an alternative, one that proved to be successful in the case of other programs, had disappointing results: none of the SoulSeek alternatives managed to fill the gap.

I consider the absence of a SoulSeek alternative to be most frustrating. Why? Because SoulSeek was perfect when it came to finding obscure music or recent and/or non-mainstream releases. In my experience, Torrentsites tend to only offer mainstream releases, as do newsgroups, making SoulSeek such a quintessential tool. First off, before criticizing these alternatives, I need to say that I have the greatest respect for those developing the alternatives. As I do not have the technical skills to develop these programs myself, I can only admire those that do so. However, this of course does not take away the frustration of the shortcomings of the available alternatives. Secondly, for all people criticizing those that download music: such is not the topic of this post. Continue reading The long and inconclusive search for a Mac OSX alternative to SoulSeek →