File Sharing on Network

July 18, 2009 by admin
Filed under Types of File Sharing

File sharing is a web based technology which has been with us since the late 1990s, at least in the sense that we mean today when we use the phrase file sharing. Obviously, people have been swapping information in the form of files ever since the days of the ARPANET, long before anyone ever imagined that there would someday be a large number of different file sharing networks which allowed people to upload and download just about any file of their choosing.

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There are file sharing networks and file sharing services which have come and gone, such as the late, lamented Napster. While the company still exists, it is a very different thing than it was in its early 2000s heyday. However, other file sharing networks were already in existence at the time and along with other newer file sharing networks have stepped up in the years since to fill the void.
One of the more popular file sharing networks in use today is the Gnutella network (used by the popular file sharing programs LimeWire and BearShare, along with lesser-known clients including Lopster, the command line client Nap and others). Another very popular file sharing network which has been around for a while now is the FastTrack file sharing network, which is the basis for the well known clients Kazaa, Grokster and others. This is one of the more commonly used file sharing networks and as such has a lot of popular content; but it is also known for containing a lot of fake or corrupt files, as well as viruses disguised as a popular video or music file ? and some FastTrack clients are notorious for containing advertisements and spyware. Any file sharing program should be used cautiously in order to protect yourself from these kinds of security threats.
A relative newcomer to the file sharing scene is Soulseek, which uses its own network of servers. This file sharing application is gaining in popularity due to its ease of use and cross platform availability (Nicotine and other Soulseek clients are available for MacOS and Linux systems, as well as for Windows). While this file sharing network does not feature the ?swarming? capabilities of some other file sharing services, download speeds tend to be acceptable and the network is a good place to search for harder to find music. It is also relatively free of corrupt files and malware and has a ?download entire folder? feature.

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Direct Connect is another of the newer file sharing networks. Direct Connect uses decentralized servers called ?hubs?. While not as heavily used as many of the other file sharing networks, it shows great promise. Many file sharing users choose to use a multipurpose client instead, such as eMule, which can connect to many different file sharing networks simultaneously; making it a lot easier to find a source for that file you?ve been looking for.
File sharing is a technology which is still somewhat young and many improvements both in terms of file sharing networks and file sharing clients to access these networks and provide for the uploading and downloading of files is sure to come. Whatever may come, it will certainly be interesting to see the continued development of file sharing.