The race for the top slot was a tight one. Grooveshark took home the prize with 31% of the vote beating out Pandora (29%) by a little more than 200 votes. Following Pandora, Last.fm (14%) and Spotify (13%) engaged in a similar neck and neck battle for the third and fourth spots respectively. Trailing behind them was Lala with 5% of the vote, not a bad show for a new and relatively unknown service.

For more information about the Hive Five contenders, check out the full Hive Five. Have a favorite streaming service that didn't make the top five cut? Let's hear about it in the comments. Have a great idea for a Hive Five? Shoot us an email at tips@lifehacker.com with "Hive Five" in the subject line.

Taking home nearly a third of the votes (31%) was the powerhouse of iGoogle/Google . Some readers love iGoogle for the customizable widgets and Google integration, and other users just want the spartan interface of the basic Google query box. Following Google was the various incarnations of Speed Dial, including the New Tab Page in Chrome, with 24% of the vote. about:blank made a strong showing in third place with 18% of the vote, representing the anti-start page crowd with its blank emptiness. Fav4.org took fourth place (10%) with readers citing the simplicity and elegance of the interface as its key selling point. Last place (8%) went to the "Custom" option for readers who build their own personal portals and start pages instead of using pre-made ones.

Check out the full Hive Five for additional information about each contender and, as always, if you have a great idea for a Hive Five, we want to hear about it. Send us an email at tips at lifehacker.com with "Hive Five" in the subject line to share your ideas.

At the front with a nearly 10% lead was Windows 7, the newest offering in the Hive, with 36% of the vote. Ubuntu took second place with 27% of the vote, followed by a near tie between OS X and Jolicloud—12% of the vote each, with a 58 vote margin pushing OS X slightly ahead. Pulling up the back of the popular crowd was Linux Mint and its 8% share of the vote.

For a closer look at the winner and runners up, check out the full Hive Five. Have an idea for a future Hive Five? Send us an email at tips at lifehacker.com with "Hive Five" in the subject line.

In a landslide victory that shouldn't be surprising to anyone, iTunes beat down the competition with a majority vote of 51%. Following iTunes was the Zune software with 17% of the vote. Being tied to the two major players in the portable music player game definitely helps boost the popularity of the top two—-try loading podcasts on an iPod without iTunes, it can be done but it's quite an exercise in patience and your desire to live an iTunes-free existence.

Following the stranglehold iTunes and Zune had on the top of the chart, Miro and gPodder nearly tied with roughly 9% of the vote—367 votes and 349 votes respectively. Rounding out the bottom was Juice with 7% of the vote. Keep in mind that despite getting single-digit percentages these runners up are all great tools that merited inclusion in the Hive Five—facing off against iTunes is no easy task. Check out the full Hive Five for additional information and great reader comments.

Before we dive in, it's worth noting that this week's Hive Five required a little in-progress clarification. Our initial call was a request for best public trackers, but a lot of votes were for best indexers—to read more about the differences, see the actual Hive Five. We chalked that up to us not explicitly stating the difference between a tracker and an indexer and when the Hive Five was compiled, we opted to focus on the aspect of the two that the end user really cares about: downloading and using torrent files. With that in mind, the results:

The Pirate Bay, though no longer a tracker in its own right, took home the largest number of votes to weigh in at 29%. Following with a not-so-shabby second place was Demonoid (27%) and then the popular isoHunt with 19%. Rounding out the Hive Five was BTJunkie (15%) and KickAssTorrents (5%).

Have a BitTorrent-related tip or trick? Let's hear about it in the comments. If you have an idea for a future Hive Five, send an email to tips at lifehacker.com with "Hive Five" in the subject line.