I was wondering if you could help me again! I have recently uninstalled a music downloading programme that i no longer wanted on my pc. I have deleted the shared folder and taken all tracks out of there and put them into another personal track file, AND used 'add or remove programs' part of control panel to remove the programme-phew! Does this mean i am no longer sharing my music as I am worried when copying my own CD's to my pc's music library-I don't wanna be illegal by sharing stuff!!! Please put my weary mind at rest!?

reply #1
Hi
You will only be sharing your music files if you are running a file-sharing program such as Kazaa or Direct Connect, which allow other people to access files from certain folders you have specified on your computer. If there is nothing in your Shared folder and you have not specified any other folders for sharing, then no-one can download these files from you.

Similarly if you have now uninstalled the program and it does not appear in the Add/Remove programs list then there is no way for anyone to see or access the files you were sharing.

If you use Windows Media Player you may notice that it will try to connect to the Internet to send and retrieve information regarding the music file you are playing or ripping from CD (such as the track name or artist).
This does not mean you are then sharing that file, or that anyone will find out what songs you're copying and track you down. Media Player tries to get information from the Internet to help automatically identify songs for you but does not send information that could be used to personally identify you (if it did, nobody would use Media Player).

If you do use Media Player and are concerned at all, you can prevent Media Player from doing this:
In Media Player go to Tools > Options and under the Privacy tab, clear all the boxes.

Note that you will now have to manually name the songs you copy from CD, rather than having it done automatically for you.

If you are concerned about your general privacy and security online, there are certain steps you can take:

* Use ZoneAlarm (this prevents programs from accessing files on your computer unless you specifically allow it)
* Use Ad-aware and Spybot to remove any spyware (including any that come with Kazaa or other file-sharing programs)
* Use a virus-checker (e.g. AVG anti-virus) to remove any viruses which might make your system vulnerable

Check the Easy Computer Tips web site for guides to using these programs