SoulseekQt

There’s a certain freedom that comes with using peer-to-peer connections to download your files. When moving to cloud-based solutions offered by big companies is seemingly a tendency of our times, finding places where you can share your files in peace with other users, decentralization considerations aside, has a charm of its own.

That is precisely what SoulseekQt is predicated upon: offering a place where users can share their music libraries in peace, discover new songs, join various chat rooms, and why not, even make some new friends in the process.

This solution may almost feel like a relic of the past in today’s web climate: peer-to-peer file sharing is becoming increasingly less common, which in turn makes software like SoulseekQt appear more and more distant to the casual user weaned by the streaming era.

Even so, there’s a reason the platform is still standing. Such apps, peer-to-peer based as they are, are only as good as their user base: in this case, you can expect to find tunes whose popularity ranges from widely known to niche, one-off wonders from unnamed artists that YouTube content creators make hour-long essays about.

You can start by creating an account and doing a manual search. For instance, I’ve been looking for a soundtrack that wasn’t streaming anywhere, and YouTube results were far too disorganized. Somehow, I was able to find everything I needed thanks to a user sharing their neatly arranged library — all in high fidelity no less.

When looking up something, it’s not a bad idea to use some filters if a simple search fails you. Besides excluding certain terms from your search, you may also limit the bit rate and file size of the results, among other things.

As you may expect, peer-to-peer communities are highly dependent on user contributions, and as such, it’s good practice to partake by sharing your music library to avoid being labeled a freeloader.

Anyhow, with such a variety of users on board, it’s possible that you’ll find a community that is just up your alley. This can be done via the Rooms tab, but you can also message most users whose libraries you can find via Search. You may add others to your buddy list, receive alerts whenever they go online, and maybe even ask them for some recommendations.

Despite the overwhelming popularity of streaming services, SoulseekQt still very much has its place in today’s web. Owing to a passionate user base, finding that one song you're looking for is just a search away.