If you thought Britney Spears and Harry Potter were hot last year, you'd be right. They ranked high on Yahoo!'s most-requested search terms list for 2003.

But Kazaa ranked the highest.

Kazaa is a peer-to-peer file-trading tool. You can use it to trade music, movies and images. But don't.

The free version of Kazaa also secretly downloads "adware" to your computer and you will be spammed with major pop-ups and pop-unders every time you use the Internet. Adware, AKA "spyware," also tracks where you go on the Internet and offers advertising from its clients to distract you from otherwise good consumer information.

For instance, if you go online to search for low-interest loan rates, you might be inundated with pop-ads from competing companies offering lower interest rates that may or may not be legit. The FTC has stopped short of telling consumers straight out not to use free file-trading software, like Kazaa, but does warn consumers to understand the risks.

Not only can you download unwanted adware, but you can also fry your motherboard with viruses and archive all sorts of porn in your hard drive.

Besides the annoyance of a proliferation of unwanted pop-ads and the dangers associated with downloading porn, there's one more thing to consider: It's illegal to download music without paying for it or having a license for it. Not everyone gets caught of course, but the Recording Industry of America went after hundreds of people last summer for "music piracy" and threatens to go after peer-to-peer software users who continue to download for free. In their legal action over the summer, they didn't care whether a user had downloaded five songs or 500 songs, they went after damages from $750 to $150,000 for each song. ( Read More )

"We can and will continue to file copyright infringement lawsuits against illegal file sharers," RIAA company officials said in December.

The online infringement of copyrighted music can be punished by up to three years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Repeat offenders can be imprisoned up to 6 years, according to RIAA officials .

Keep It Legal

So, how can you download music from the Internet -- legally? There are lots of good, reputable sites out there, but here's the key -- you will have to pay. Here are some recommendations. And don't groan too much as you reach for your wallet. Downloading songs legally is still cheaper than a lawsuit or having to go to a store and buy an entire CD -- when usually you just end up liking one or two songs off the CD anyway. And, after you've downloaded your songs you can rip them into any order you want -- another bonus.

Napster: It's still there -- and now it's legal. It offers a premium service for about $10 a month where you can download albums for $10 and songs for 99 cents. It also offers commercial free Napster Radio.

Walmart.com: If you're new to the whole downloading music thing, you might want to start here. Wal-mart's site is simple and cheap -- you can download songs for 88 cents. The going rate per song is 99 cents, so this is a bargain. If you don't know what you are doing, this site explains it step-by-step, making it easy for anyone -- start here.

I-Tunes: This is one of the most popular, legal sites out there. It used to be only for Mac users, but now PC users can enjoy "the world's best digital jukebox." It's all new store has 500,000 songs!

Rhapsody (listen.com): This is a cool site, because you can try before you buy. It offers a seven-day free trial -- during which you can d ownload for 79 cents per song. It also offers Internet radio. Its selection offers 320,000 songs on-demand for streaming or downloading for about $10 a month. And you can download to burn about about 150,000 songs for 99 cents each.

MusicNow.com This site doesn't have as many songs -- about 200,000 for streaming and 100,000 for burning (99 cents each burn). Cost per month is $9.95.

Adware Problems

If you already have been plagued by Kazaa's adware, don't despair, you can get rid of it. There are several programs out there, such as:

Lavasoftusa.com

Ad-aware

AdsGone