The second of four introductory tutorials on how to get started with BearShare. It is recommended that BearShare already be installed and set up on your computer. If it is not, please read the Installation/Setup page first. Detailed information about BearShare can be found in the User Guide starting with the Using BearShare section.

The first startup event will be BearShare automatically connecting to the Gnutella Network. You should see the 1st, or leftmost LED flashing red while it looks for hosts to connect to.

If the red becomes yellow you are partially connected, and you may proceed, even though BearShare has not yet found the optimal number of hosts for you based on your internet connection. This is not a problem, however, and does not seriously hinder BearShare's functionality. It will eventually find all the hosts that are needed.

When the flashing red (or yellow) turns to a steady green, then you have a full, stable connection to the network.

A good connection Enough hosts (1st LED) Not firewalled (4th LED)

The second startup event will be BearShare detecting your firewall status. The 4th, or rightmost LED will flash green during the firewall detection phase. Give BearShare at least one minute to determine if you are firewalled or not.

If the 4th LED turns to steady green, congratulations! You are now cleared and ready to share files.

If the 4th LED turns to a steady yellow, then you are firewalled, either because of a personal firewall installed on your computer, or because you have a router with a built-in firewall, or both! You will not be able to share files until you configure the firewall to allow BearShare incoming and outgoing access to the internet. If you are not sure how to do that, check our firewall tutorial pages to see if your particular brand of firewall is mentioned there. If not, please consult your firewall help files or website documentation.

When the 1st LED is steady green, the 4th LED is steady green, and the 3rd LED has stopped flashing yellow, you are ready to search for, download, and share files. If you should have any problems getting connected, please consult our Troubleshooting Guide.

The third startup event may or may not take awhile, depending on how many files are in your shared folder(s). If you are running BearShare for the first time, or, in the future if you have added new files to an existing shared folder, you need give it time to "hash" the files. It can be difficult to use BearShare effectively during the hashing process, and, depending on how many files are there, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for it to finish.

To avoid the possibility of having to wait hours before you can actually use BearShare, the best thing to do is start with a small group of files to be shared. How many files can be considered a small group is determined by the type or size of the files you are adding. Just remember, large files = long hash time.

During the hashing phase, the 3rd LED from the left will flash yellow. Hover your mouse over that light, and you will see an information bubble that tells you how many files are being hashed, and how much time is left to finish the process.

When a stable connection has been established, and all your shared files have been hashed, you are ready to start searching for files.