The Future of Free Internet File Sharing...
Written: Apr 16 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Download movies, music, games and more...
Cons: Slow...
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this to anyone with a cable modem/ DSL or faster connection.
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| jhcashman's Full Review: Gnutella |
Ok, first they kill Scour, possibly THE best file sharing software ever. It had it all - it was cool looking, fast, and had some of the best features ever. It was truly a sad day when they shut it down. Now after months of struggling the file sharing giant Napster is about to fall. The past few months have been horrible for Napster, its servers where getting slower and slower and more and more good users were leaving. There was really nothing left to save. As the whole Napster community collapses, its millions of users have scattered and started to try out new file sharing programs such as WinMX, File Explorer, imesh, Napigator and of course Gnutella.
Programs such as WinMX and Napigator use the old Napster’s “underground” network composed of large networks such as Music City and Open Nap and other smaller independent networks. These work more or less like Napster, but with software that isn’t so “pretty”. So far they work fine, I have reviewed Napigator here: http://jhcashman.epinions.com/content_8046939780 and I plan to review WinMX as soon as Epinions makes an entree for it. Although these will serve you as Napster has for the time being, you never know when they will get shut down. Other file sharing software such as imesh are independent file sharing software that run on their own networks. Most of these are very “primitive” and have tons of bugs and few users.
Since the Music Industry got their way with Napster other like file sharing software will become endangered very fast. It is only a matter of time before some sort of law against file sharing programs in general is passed. Once that happens all of these file sharing programs and networks will probably start dropping like files… However there is one that will stand once all of the rest has fallen – Gnutella.
What is Gnutella?
For those who don't know, Gnutella is a revolutionary new kind of file sharing software. Basically Gnutella is like Napster for all files including music, sounds, documents, movies, and even games and programs. Unlike Napster and most of the rest of the File Sharing software Gnutella is not based on a central server. The way all the rest of the file sharing software works is by connecting to a central server with a database which tells the program which user has which file and then redirects the software to the right person. With Gnutella it’s totally different. Basically Gnutella works like a chain letter or a pyramid scheme or like the refer system of many programs like Epinions! Basically instead of connecting you to a central server you are connected to other computers. You first connect to four computers, which are each connected to four other computers, which are in turn each connected to four other computers, and so on. When you search for something your search goes down the “tree” of users and searches each one of them. So say you enter a search for “porn,” which I am sure a lot of you will be ;). Your computer will ask the four computers it is connected to, if they have a match. In turn the connected computers will each ask their connected computers and so on. Soon you will get results from thousands of computers.
What's Good?
The best thing about Gnutella is that there are no central servers. What does this mean to us common folk? In a nutshell, it means it is next to impossible for them to shut it down. Because every computer acts as a server there is no one for them to shut down and theirs no one in control so it’s impossible to ban certain songs. It is like communism, with no possible chance of corruption! No one can make a huge profit off it and it benefits all, except the music, movie, and software industries...
If you think you can get a lot of stuff from Napster then you haven’t seen anything yet...forget about mp3s, with Gnutella you can get full movies, games, programs and just about anything else your heart desires. I recently saw the full version of traffic, which is still in theaters! We are talking terabytes of data!
Another cool feature of Gnutella is you can monitor all the searches against your database. Also, when you search no one can tell who you are because you are searching through other people’s computers. This is good cause if you are searching for nasty porn no one will know.
What’s Bad?
Obviously no software is perfect and Gnutella is no exception. In fact there are many problem with Gnutella. When Gnutella first came out there were virus floating around all over the place and you were more likely to get your favorite virus rather than your favorite song on MP3. However most of that is gone now. Another problem with Gnutella is that resuming file transfers is a lot harder then with Napster. Because no one knows each other and you are identified by your IP address it is a lot harder to find the exact same user, since many users have a dynamic IP address. Another draw back to this is that you can’t have buddy lists of people who you can download from frequently.
The biggest single problem for Gnutella is SPEED! Gnutella is very slow… For started you have to let Gnutella “warm up” when you start it. Cause it takes roughly 5-10 minutes to collect all the different IP addresses and to establish connections with all the different servers. If you don’t let it warm up then your search will not go too far… The search itself can take quite a long time to complete since it has to go all the way down your “tree” of users, usually a few minutes. Downloading is a pain too sometimes. Often you get disconnected or a “busy” signal. Usually if you search for something and get 20 results you probably have to try all of them before you can get one to actually work. Once the download is started it is still much slower the speeds you would get on Napster. On Napster I would usually get around 25k to 35k per second on my cable modem. On Gnutella if I can hit 10-20 I would be very happy.
Finally one more problem is that it is hard to control how many people are connect to you so it can significantly slow your computer down if 20 people are try to download from you and thousands are searching through your computer. I had my computer crash many times form Gnutella. You definitely want to think twice about leaving it on all night for a download.
What Else?
Gnutella is still relatively new and is getting better and better. Right now with many Napster Networks banning thousands of songs and limiting the number of users it is almost totally worthless and there is really nothing else to use. Gnutella has come along way and it has a long way to go. But now the clients are very user friendly and are almost as good as Napster. I would recommend this to anyone with a cable modem/ DSL or faster connection… For those with 56k or less you can try it, but I doubt it will work too well. There is no doubt that Gnutella will be the future of Free Internet File Sharing, it has the potential to blow Napster completely out of the water. It's an amazing file sharing system that is only going to get better…
Gnutella Clients I Recommend…
Lime Wire - http://www.limewire.com/
Probably my favorite Gnutella Client, very easy to use with a nice interface. Written in Java so it will work with many operating systems
Bear Share - http://www.bearshare.com/
Another very nice Gnutella Client. Nice interface and very easy to use
Toad Node - http://www.toadnode.com/
A fairly decent client but not as easy to use as the other two
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jhcashman
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Location: Lexington; Ma
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 109 members
About Me:
Fresh out of College... Traveling around the USA working as a Tech Consultant...
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