If you’re fairly new to this client, you may have quite a few questions that you’d like answering so that you know how to use the software much more effectively. In this article, we’ll do our best to clear up all of the common questions people tend to have when using our Ares download. You can see the questions and answers below.

Feature Questions

▶ I’ve heard about something called skins. What is this?

Skins are a great way of customizing the application you know and love. You can change the color scheme as well as the layout of the different features included. There are quite a few built into the tool that we recommend you take a look at first of all but if not, you’ll find even more on our website that you can simply install into it and use it like the others. There are skins available that will suit all needs so you should have no excuse but to take a look, even if you’re happy with the default one (which most people are).

▶ How do I use the files I’ve downloaded?

This answer depends on what you actually want to use it for. If you want to just play back the files on your own computer then you can go ahead and find them stored on your hard drive and play them in whichever piece of software you want. It’s a bit different if you want to use them on other devices, though. We’ve created separate articles on our website to help you with this, but what we can tell you about is the basic process. If you want to move it to portable media, you first have to locate the physical files and then push them to whatever storage device you want to. It really isn’t that challenging to do.

▶ How can I use the media player which is built-in?

This is another feature that is very simple to use and requires no management at all. When you’re downloading a piece of media – whether that be a song or a video – previewing it to make sure it’s exactly what you want is something that could be very useful. All you need to do is go onto the Transfer tab and then select the option to preview your download. You should find that the media player is then set to active and will play everything that has been downloaded so far, but note you will need to give the software some time to actually download data otherwise you won’t be able to preview anything.

▶ I’ve heard about the library feature in Ares, how can I use it?

Whenever you download a file using the software, the file will automatically be added into the library feature. It’ll be sorted into the correct category so that whenever you need to find it again, you can simply go into the library tab and select it. It’s a much better option than having to manually sort them which can take huge amounts of time and you could easily get lost if you’re working with tons of files in Ares. This is a feature that you really should be using if you’re serious about using the tool properly.

General Questions

▶ What type of files can I download from the network?

This is one of Ares Galaxy’s strong points – you can actually download most different types of files. The majority of people use it to try and obtain music and movies but this definitely isn’t the limit. If you use the search bar, you should be able to find the latest software as well as video games. If you have any of these to share yourself you can do so which would be a great help to the community. If not, you’ll always be able to benefit from the generosity of others and if you like what you download, you can support the authors by buying the product legally.

▶ Are there any limits on the amount I can download using the P2P network?

You’ll be glad to know that there aren’t any restrictions at all on the amount you’re allowed to download from the network. The only restrictions you may encounter are set by your ISP – for example, if you have any bandwidth caps included on your internet plan. Some ISPs will limit your speed if you download excessively but this is completely unrelated to Ares. If you do download a lot, we do hope that you’ll decide to share files you own with the rest of the network so that everyone can benefit, not just yourself. You won’t lose much by doing so and it just helps to keep the network going and being active.

▶ I’m thinking about using this program but I’m not entirely sure how I can stay safe. Can you give any tips?

We’ve published a separate guide on our website that will give you some great tips for staying safe when using the P2P network. To put it very simply, though, you need a very good quality antivirus software that will be able to detect any viruses or malware in the files you download. You can find both free and paid versions so it’s entirely up to you which you choose, we’d recommend both AVG (Free) and Bullguard (Paid) though as both of these seem to do the job well. Another way of protecting yourself is by making sure you aren’t downloading any files that could be potentially dangerous such as executable files. These are just some of the ways you can reduce the risk of a problem occurring.

▶ I’m currently downloading a file but it seems to be taking a while.

There are a few different reasons why this could be. First of all, if the file you’re downloading is rather large in size, it will undoubtedly take a lot longer for the whole process to complete so you will need to be patient. If you’re on a slow internet connection, this could result in poor download speeds which would again result in the download taking a while. If neither of the reasons we’ve specified is true, then it could just be that the user you’re downloading it from is either on a busy or a slow network. You have to remember that there could be many people trying to download the same file at the same time which would really slow the speeds down. You will need to be patient in this case.

▶ I’ve just tried to download something but the status of it is “Queued”. What does this mean?

Don’t worry, this just means that the user you’re downloading from is busy at the moment, possibly due a high amount of downloaders on their end or it could mean that they’re on a poor internet connection which struggles to manage many downloaders at any one time. Either way, you’ll remain in the queued stage until a slot becomes available for you. The best thing to do is just wait until this happens, it shouldn’t be like that for too long so if you just leave our Ares free download open there’ll be no problems.

▶ I have quite a few files I want to share with the community. How do I do it?

This is very easy to do luckily, that is why so many people help to support the community by doing so! If you want to share your own files, you can simply go into the Filesharing tab and then choose the autoscan option. This will then browse through all of the files on your computer and find ones that might be worth sharing. On the next screen it’ll ask you which ones you do want to share, you simply select each one and you’re ready to go! Everyone else in the P2P network should have access to what you’ve shared!

▶ I’ve seen other websites that have been selling this tool. Is it really free?

Ares is and always has been free, ever since the first official release of it back in 2002. Some sites attempt to deceive users by making them pay a lot of money when the software is freely available on our website. We highly recommend that if you want to install it on a new computer, you always use our website to do so to make sure that you don’t waste money or end up viruses. You can find the download at the top of our website to do so.

Installation Questions

▶ Which Operating Systems does this work on?

At the moment this tool will work on all versions of the popular Windows operating system, this is a basic requirement. This shouldn’t be a problem for the vast majority of people, especially as around 90% of home computers around the world are running on a compatible operating system. For those of you running Mac OS X or a Linux distribution, you may still be able to use it if you use another application such as Wine which will convert it into a suitable file for your system to run. It isn’t guaranteed to work perfectly but it’s definitely worth a try anyway.

▶ How long does it take for the install to complete?

You’ll be glad to know that the install is actually very quick due to the small file size of the download and the very simplistic nature of the application. The compressed version of all of the files required only reaches 2MB in size which means it shouldn’t take long at all for it to save on your computer no matter what internet connection you’re on. The installation process simply moves these files into the correct location on your hard drive to make the program functional which takes several minutes and after this is done, you’re all ready to go!

▶ Are the system requirements High?

This is a question we get asked quite a lot and we can luckily say that the system requirements are incredibly low for running our application on your computer. In fact, even operating systems as old as Windows 95 are able to run it without any issues! You only need 128MB of RAM to install it and run it too which the vast majority of computers will have by now. You’ll also be glad to know that to install Ares you’ll only need around 20MB of disk space too, although bare in mind that to download files you’ll need significantly more though. If you have these you should meet the minimum criteria of running it, although having a good quality internet connection is essential for downloading files so you also need to think about this.

▶ I’m running Windows Vista and am having a few problems running the Ares download. What can I do?

This is actually quite a common problem and is related to the Windows operating system and not our software! Don’t worry though, Microsoft have released an update to fix this themselves so we recommend that you go into Windows updates and make sure your computer is fully up-to-date. Once all of the updates have been installed, you should find that you no longer have any problems and can continue to use it as normal. Users on other versions of Windows, such as XP and 7, shouldn’t be affected by this bug.