By Sarah Rotman
Ohaha is an "open-source initiative" that allows file sharing
of music, films, and other entertainment. It claims to be the most
comprehensive file-sharing network, since it actually encompasses
the "closed legacy system" Napster and decentralized protocol
Gnutella. This is all theory. In practice, Ohaha is so difficult to
use that no one can take advantage of its comprehensive file-sharing
network. I know this because after attempting to install it several
times, I turned to the website forums for help (there are no "how
to" instructions on the site), and found dozens of other bewildered
users like me who a) couldn't install it, then b) found it difficult
to use once they did install it, and c) hated it so much they wanted
to uninstall it and couldn't figure out how.
Here's how it works: You visit the Ohaha.com site and click on the
"install now" link. You click through the installation wizard,
then restart your computer as requested. Now, you can't figure out
how it works-when you click the icon, it only runs the installation
process again. Finally, you turn back to the site for help, find no
official instructions, then check the forum, which refers you to the
support site www.ohahaworld.net,
where you click on tutorial. At this point you realize something creepy-you
now have an Ohaha tool bar on your Explorer browser (the application
only works for IE5), through which you search ineffectively for the
music or movies you want. There is no requested format for artist/title,
so you end up searching blindly through files you don't want, which
appear in a bar on the right-hand side of the screen. Finally, something
familiar-the Napster color-coding system of dots that indicate the
speed of the connection over which you will share the file. Unfortunately,
you still don't have the full artist/title information, but supposedly,
at this point you can double click on the file and download it. Sound
confusing and needlessly complicated? It is. Don't want that bar on
your browser anymore? Look forward to another 20 minutes of figuring
out how to remove it (it is possible).
I suppose the idea behind it is good-"taking Gnutella and Freenet
to the next level"-and I'm amazed at how the application becomes
embedded in your IE toolbar (though I can't say I like it). I think
the future direction of this product needs to address usability-clearer
explanations of what it is and how to use it on the splash page so
you can be informed before you download it. Also, an explanation of
how to search for what you want would be helpful. The bottom line
is that there are so many other file-sharing applications out there,
for free, there is no reason to use this one-even if it is more comprehensive-if
it is so difficult to use.