 Most of them are used to read and strip off built in metadata from the files being hashed and convert it to an external XML based format, or to decode multimedia files for making a preview for other G2 clients.Some others serve the need of a media player inside Shareaza, and enhancements of that media player.Third party plugins can also be used, for example, "Sharemonkey", which will add a link inside Shareaza when downloading or searching copyrighted material from where it can be legally downloaded.