Alston Grove

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I tried out a couple peer to peer networks. I wanted to see what has changed. In first generation P2P, searching took place on central servers, which kept track of all the peers, like Napster. Actually, bittorrent still works this way. In second gen P2P, the network is decentralized, but not very secure or anonymous, like Kazaa, Donkey, and Gnutella. The next gen will thwart any efforts by RIAA or MPAA by using a distributed architecture that is also untraceable, like Freenet and Waste.

So I tried the eDonkey2000 peer to peer network. Certainly a lot of files on the network. But I found the download speeds to be slow. While my download queue was filled, I only got 10 KB/s on a cable modem, but I was sending up 50 KB/s. That’ll teach those leaches. Of course, who wants to use a P2P network that you have to sit on for weeks to get any files? To make matters worse, I thought the user interface was a bit clumsy and complicated.

My friend mentions Limewire, so I try it. It’s written in Java, so it has no problem supporting multiple platforms. It’s actually using Gnutella network. This time, I got over 400 KB/s down and under 50 KB/s up! The user interface is very well done. It even lets you preview music and video files that you’re downloading.

The Donkey network seems to have a community that likes to sit on the network and share, so it has more files and downloading large files is no problem if you can wait a few days. The Gnutella network is about speed, but you have to get those files during prime time before all the peers disappear off the network. Files that were on Gnutella one night could be gone the next time you check, while Donkey seems to be an archive.

Even though Gnutella network may not have as many files, it’s still the clear winner. It really does whip the eDonkey.

[Sidebar. The phrase is a reference to Winamp, which has an mp3 that plays on startup, "Winamp, it really whips the llama's ass." Kindof a funny thing to say. Apparently, a music artist in Chicago named Wesley Willis wrote lyrics like that. One of his favorite phrases was, "It really whips a [insert animal here]’s ass.”]