Ares Lite was developed in 2003 for those users with slower or less powerful computers, or those that simply want to tie up fewer resources. We recommend Ares Lite for those who are stuck using a computer that is 6 or more years old. It has not been updated, and is much more limited than more modern versions of Ares. We recommend other Ares downloads for anyone with a computer less than 6 years old.

The user interface is understandably sparse, but all the regular functions can be found somewhere in the software. Some more advanced features have been stripped out, but it's likely that only the most experienced users would need these anyway, and even then only very occasionally. You probably won't miss them.

The low memory consumption will mean that your computer should not slow down while the software is running and will sit quietly in the background doing its job. The low CPU usage also means less drain on resources.

What we liked
Ares Lite really is, well, light. It runs quietly in the background is a perfect example of set and forget software – set it up and leave it. This worked really well for us because there's nothing more annoying that trying to work on a document but being obstructed by a large, bloated, attention-seeking P2P program.

The multi-file download system is simple, but works perfectly. You are limited to 10 downloads at one time, but that is seldom an issue as download speeds are fast enough that we had a hard time lining up the 10th file to download before the first was done.



What we didn't like
Ares Lite is perfect in many ways, but we were sometimes a little confused by the interface. Minimalistic is good, but some of the symbols on the buttons led us to wonder what exactly it was that they did. This is a minor problem and hovering the mouse pointer over the button will often reveal its purpose – in any case once you get used to which buttons do what you'll have no problems. The delete key is fortunately conspicuous, so there's no way you can confuse that with something else. This is a very minor issue, and isn't really going to be a problem at all. A great piece of software.
For these reasons, we would recommend Ares Lite, but only for users with old computers (more than 6 years old)