Welcome to BearShare FAQ
The most frequently asked questions are answered here, so make sure to give it a good read before you contact support and interrupt them from their eternal coffee break...
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Questions:
General:
Instant Messages:
Technical Troubleshooting:
Answers:
| Q: | Is BearShare free? |
| A: | Yes it is. You can use the software to download music and video from other peers. The Premium content (identified by Golden Stars in search results) requires that you subscribe to Bearshare Premium. |
| Q: | What is the difference between BearShare and the older versions? |
| A: | BearShare has many great new features:
- Faster Downloads
- Millions of Songs to Download and Listen to
- Ability to buy songs
- State of the art search tools
- Cool features like playlists, moods, artist biographies, and discographies
BearShare also features a vibrant community including user profiles, instant messaging, friends lists, and many more features making this the friendliest, most collaborative Bearshare yet!
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| Q: | What are the system requirements to run BearShare on my computer? |
| A: |
- Operating System: Windows XP Home or Professional. Bearshare is NOT supported on Windows 95, NT, 98, Me or Macintosh.
- CPU: 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system); Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended.
- Memory: 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended.
- Hard Drive: Approximately 13 MB for Bearshare. Around 18 MB for Windows Media Player if it is not already installed.
- Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0 and above. You can get IE 6.0 from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp.
- Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher. Windows Media Player 10 Series is highly recommended. You can get Windows Media Player from Microsoft. - http://www.windowsmedia.com.
- Internet Connection: Active Internet connection.
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| Q: | Do I need to register? |
| A: | Yes, in order to use BearShare you must register an Bearshare account. It's quick, simple and most importantly - it's totally FREE. |
| Q: | What types of files can I download using BearShare? |
| A: |
- Windows media files: asf, asx, avi
- Windows media Audio files: wmv, wax, wm, wma, wmd, wmx, wmz, wvx
- Movie files: mpeg, mpg, mpa, mpe, m1v, mp2, mp2v
- MP3 audio files: mp3
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| Q: | What is the "Discover" section? |
| A: | In our Discover section you can browse millions of songs by different genres, artists, moods and more.
Inside each artist page you can view the artists' details and download their discography.
Each artist page also lists fans from the Bearshare Community of that specific artist/band, allowing you to instantly connect with everyone that shares your music tastes.
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| Q: | What do I get when I subscribe to BearShare? |
| A: | With the new Bearshare you get:
- Fast Downloads
- A Powerful search engine
- Robust Discovery area with moods, Bearshare Picks, artist discographies and much more
- Ability to access over 15 million tracks
- BearShare contains both copyrighted and free tracks. Copyrighted tracks are shown with a gold file designation and are accessible on an unlimited basis with our subscription service or available for individual download for $.99 each. As long as you are an active subscription member you will have unlimited access to all 15 million tracks.
In BearShare all the music that we distribute is 100% legal.
Bearshare has over 15 million tracks that you can access through our service.
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| Q: | Can I burn my Bearshare music to CDs with BearShare? |
| A: | Yes you can. All the tracks labeled with a green CD icon can be burned free of charge!
You can purchase Premium Tracks, the ones labeled with a yellow CD icon, in order to burn them to a CD. You can right-click on any Premium Track(s) in the Search, and either click Download, or Buy Song(s).
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| Q: | How can I create playlists of my favorite songs? |
| A: | Click on the 'New playlist' button located on the lower-left area of Bearshare, and specify a name for the playlist. Then, drag the desired songs from the library onto the playlist you've just created.
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| Q: | Where are my downloads saved to? |
| A: | You can choose the location of your downloaded files by going to
"Tools->Preferences->Library & Downloads" on the Bearshare menu.
The default download location is "My Documents \My Music\Bearshare".
Note: If you change the folder after you've downloaded files, please note that Bearshare won't copy your previously downloaded files to the new folder.
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| Q: | My downloads start, but then go into "queued" status. What does that mean? |
| A: | BearShare is both a music subscription service and a file sharing program. Many of our files are coming from other Bearshare users. They are files that other users decided to share with you.
Because of this, there is no guarantee that the file you found will always be available. The user that has the file might go offline, or shut down Bearshare, or delete the file from his or her computer completely. Although the Bearshare application tries to complete the file from other sources, it is possible that the file cannot be found and retrieved.
Here are some tips that might help you download the file you are looking for:
- Pause and resume downloading file
- Search for the file again, choose files with higher availability and download again.
- Increase the number of concurrent downloads.
You can do it by choosing the Tools Menu in the Bearshare program and then choosing Preferences -> General.
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| Q: | What is the difference between the green and yellow tracks? |
| A: | Actually, there are three types of tracks in BearShare - See below
1) Peer-2-Peer Unlicensed Media | Green CD icon 
Free Peer-2-Peer downloads from other Bearshare users. Downloading these does not require a monthly subscription. You can burn this content or transfer it to an MP3 player freely.
2) Premium Tracks | Gold CD icon 
Download as many as you wish, as long as you have an active monthly subscription (or trial).
This is all the music that is included in your Bearshare Premium subscription, and high-speed downloads are guaranteed!
3) Purchased Tracks | Boxed Gold CD icon 
You can purchase Premium Tracks in order to burn them to a CD, or transfer them to an MP3 player*.
* Burning Premium Tracks to CD, or transferring them to a PlaysForSure MP3 player, is only possible after purchasing each track separately for 0.99¢ each, and is not included in the monthly premium subscription fee.
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