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Gnutella 0.5c Still Going? UPDATED - NO

Posted by Hemos on from the get-it-while-you-can dept.

Tridus writes, "While popping around fileforum looking for new software, I happened to notice a link to Gnutella. I guess Justin and the other guys at Nullsoft aren't quite licked yet. " Update: 03/21 01:40 by E : I've been told by the folks from Winamp that this is the same code as before - sorry all - the letters simply referred a testing legacy.

6 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Not surprised that it doesn't scale by tilly · · Score: 3

    The first thought that I had when I heard that it was going to be a peer-to-peer network was that there was going to be a *lot* of polling going on transferring information about what was available, and checking what was still up.

    Scalability, needless to say, was something that I was curious how they planned to address... :-)

    Cheers,
    Ben

    --
    My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
  2. Free app that does much the same, BUT... by LucVdB · · Score: 3
    It's called FileFury, and also works peer-to-peer. Now, if it had as much hype as Gnutella perhaps someone would use it and the network would have some value.

    FileFury allows you to share files of any type, and search over other computers with FileFury, all over the Internet, instantly. With FileFury, you can find and obtain files easily; allow your friends access to your files; and surf through any computer with FileFury installed, copying whatever you want

    According to the FAQ they plan to introduce some kind of central server (if I interpret well) that would allow you to find some random 'friends' (avoiding the 'problem' that Gnutella has with finding a first connection to the network).

    For a lot of people, this is not a desireable feature; you should not have to coordinate with your friends to start searches. For this reason, Tenebril has elected to introduce a new feature in the next release of FileFury. In addition to starting searches on all your online friends, FileFury will also start searches on some number (say 5) of random online computers. No matter where you are, or when you run your search, you'll get results, instantly. And, at each hop, the search will be forwarded not only to friends but to five more random computers. So, for any search, you're likely to hit at least (5^6 = 15,625) over 15,000 computers. Instantly.

    Actually, I much prefer the grass-roots Gnutella. Tenebril, the company producing FileFury, has released the source code to much of the program - but not the critical peer-to-peer network library. They claim to have Open-Sourced the app, while actually it looks more like they've released some code to advertise their networking library. Still very nice of them if you're into MFC, mind you, but calling it Open Source won't go down well on this forum, will it?

    --
    Great games
  3. is this the next "BigThing"? by jon_c · · Score: 3

    my roommate talked has been talking to 'Tag' from nullsoft recently. the current attitude is that this piece of software is really going to shake things up. not that I've looked into it that much, after all the site is down. but here's what I've heard second hand.

    practically un-stoppable. ITG and edu's can't just block ports to stop this baby.
    not just mp3's but basically anything. I just downloaded the alpha and noticed the following default extensions.mp3;mp2;mp1;mpg;vqf;avi;mpeg;wav;mod;vo c;it;xm;s3m;stm;wma;mov;asf;zip;rar.

    wow..

    so it's basically like napster except it will have some type of web of servers connected so it won't have the centralized problem that napster does. someone clear this point up for me.

    what will also be interesting to see if this really fly's., I mean this really isn't anything new. back in the days I used to download a bunch of funny stuff off BBS's. now you can get lucky with USEnet, IRC and hotline. but the really success comes from the number of people using it. none of the mentioned have really worked due to popularity. the main reason napster does so well is that there are so many people, so more people get on, like eBay, or shoutcast. it feeds on itself.

    -Jon

    --
    this is my sig.
  4. Another post by me... (karma whore?) by pen · · Score: 4
    Here's a short summary of why Gnutella rocks and how it compares to Napster.

    Napster is client-server. Everyone connects to the main server, drops off their list of files, and the searching is done through the server.

    Gnutella is peer-to-peer. All packets are routed around the gnutellaNet. Each client is also a server. Together, it's a "servant". The whole thing works very much like the Internet itself. Each search request has a TTL. Each servant routes the search request to every servant he's connected to, subtracting 1 from the TTL. When TTL reaches 0, the search request is no longer forwarded.

    Now, the best part(s). It isn't centralized. You only need to know of one working servant IP to connect to the network. When you connect, the servant sends you a list of all the servants it knows of, so you are immediately supplied with a list of working servant IPs. If you connect at least once a week, you're set.

    Also, Gnutella isn't MP3-only. Any file type is supported.

    Now, the bad parts.

    • Regex (regular expression) searches are not supported. I've yet to figure out exactly how the searching works, but it doesn't match any pattern i can think of. I think it searches inside of files as well?
    • It doesn't seem scale well at all.
    • There is a crowd of kiddies using a pre-written Perl script to flood the network.
    Hopefully, all of these problems (and all the interface glitches I didn't mention since this is still a beta) will be fixed in 1.0. Oh yeah... hopefully, there will be a 1.0.

    --

  5. Freenet by Sanity · · Score: 5
    Thanks for your outline of how Gnutella locates information. I have spent over 18 months working on a system called Freenet which seems to have similar aims to Gnutella (peer-to-peer, no centralised server) but is much more sophisticated. It does scale well (in fact, the bigger the network, the faster it is!), and it incorporates intelligent caching and mirroring. It is also designed to make it difficult to find out who is doing what on the system. Feel free to take a look at our homepage.

    --

  6. Actually... by pen · · Score: 5
    Gnutella 0.50c is quite stable, and the unofficial official page is hosted by Nerdherd here (as mentioned by the post). A number of clones are also in the works, and the protocol has been reverse-engineered. All info is on the page.

    However, it's recommended that you do all your stuff before 3 PM, because that's when the kiddies come home from school, and the flooding begins. Gnutella currently has absolutely no provision for flood protection, and effects are severe. I guess I've just encouraged them more... heh.

    Another good source for stuff is #gnutella on EFNet. There is also #gnutelladev on EFNet. Please don't go to the second channel unless you have some question about the interal workings. All other questions should be directed to #gnutella. Also, #gnutella is a good place to find the available hosts. Here's one, digdug.dyndns.org. Let's see what happens to my dialup. :)

    --