File-sharing program
- This article should be merged with peer-to-peer.
File-sharing programs are used to directly or indirectly transfer files from one computer to another over the Internet, over a smaller Intranet, or across simple networks usually following the peer-to-peer (P2P) model.
A variety of file-sharing programs is available on several different networks. Availability depends partly on operating system, and different networks have different features (for example, multiple-source downloads, different sorts of search limiting, and so on). It is common for commercial file sharing clients to contain abrasive advertising software, or spyware.
Categories of clients:
- Centralized Clients: OpenNap
- Benefits: Faster searching and downloading
- Negatives: Often more vulnerable to legal and DDOS attacks
- Decentralized clients: Gnutella
- Benefits: Usually more reliable and rarely shut down
- Negatives: Generally slower than centralized systems
- Decentralized tracker-based clients: Bittorrent
- Benefits: Very fast due to concentration of bittorrent networks on a single file, is principally used to offer new, large files for download
- Negatives: Not centrally searchable, tracker sites are often closed down or fail, not truly anonymous
- Multi-network clients
- Benefits: allows connection to more than one network, almost always on the client side.
- Negatives: often playing catch-up to individual networks' changes and updates.
- Anonymous peer-to-peer: Freenet, GNUnet, MUTE, I2P
- Benefits: allows for the uncensored free flow of information and ideas
- Negatives: due to anonymity it allows for questionable or illegal material to be exchanged easier than other networks, often slower then regular p2p because of the overhead
- Private file-sharing networks
List of file sharing protocols
Operating system protocols
Operating servers
Applications
By network protocol
Miscellaneous protocols
User agents
Miscellaneous
See also
File sharing comparison
