Deemed "Europe's most promising peer-to-peer service" by Zeropaid, KaZaA is attracting file-sharers worldwide.

KaZaA, owned by Amsterdam-based FastTrack, has taken steps to avoid Napster-style legal woes. The company is working out a subscription payment plan through which KaZaA members will be able to pay a flat monthly subscription fee to share and download music from commercial artists legitimately and at full CD-quality.

Until that system is in place, users can only find MP3 files with a maximum downloadable rate of 128 Kbps, which is just slightly under CD-quality.

Users can swap all types of media files -- audio, video, images, documents, and software -- with KaZaA, and it uses no central servers. The technology behind it eliminates the annoying aspects of file-sharing and connects users to the fastest downloads. Search options are very specific. When the results appear, the download time is listed. There is also a special Winamp plug-in available that allows you to search for and play music directly from KaZaA via your Winamp player.

KaZaA installs quickly, and the interface is similar to a Microsoft Outlook folder, a set-up familiar to many. "Traffic" is KaZaA's equivalent to Napster's "transfer" area (where files are downloaded). "My KaZaA" is the Napster "library" (where the files are stored). Unlike Napster, the files are automatically sorted and placed in folders. More details on songs, such as full title, artist, album, category, length, and year, plus Web links to more information on the artist, are standard. Napster fans will enjoy the "instant messaging" feature, but will miss the "Hot List" option. Give KaZaA time to develop -- it has the potential to become the perfect file-sharing system.