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Is AllPeers FireFox's P2P "Killer App"?
Vivek Jishtu writes "Tech Crunch predicts that the AllPeers Firefox extension will massively increase the attractiveness of that already popular browser, drawing more millions away from embattled Internet Explorer.
AllPeers is a simple, persistent buddy list in the browser. Initially, interaction with those buddies will be limited to discovering and sharing files."
Interesting to speculate about software that we can't download, so can't try. Yes, it could be a killer app. Yes, it could be dead on arrival. We won't know until we open the box! Wow, that was interesting...
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Looks like a load of hype to me. I've never been a fan of mergin applications into "suite"'s or such. I don't even like media player's in my P2P apps, too many bad experiences with fudged partial videos or mp3/ogg's trashing the process.
Give me simplicity without the unnecessary integration.
This looks like a great feature, but it also looks like it could be a consistant security breach waiting to happen. These are the features and user toys that have plagued Microsoft security. Let's hope we don't trade safety for neato-gizmo stuff. And now I will don my tinfoil hat and be silent.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
....but I thought the continual vulnerabilities in IE and the better interface (tabs, etc) were what pulled folks from IE. Isn't Firefox itself the "killer app"?
I believe AllPeers has already been slashdotted, did we need this once more? They *still* haven't released their software. Woop-dee-doo.
All Hail Discordia. Hail Eris. Fnord.
Granted, I've only used a handful of bittorrent clients, but my biggest complaint with most is that they use the majority of my bandwidth, and I can't even get google to load when I have them open, let alone most other sites. Why would I want to have this happen every time I open Firefox? I open my browser to surf the net, not get bogged down with extensions that drain every ounce of my connection so I can share a single picture or movie with my girlfriend.
Granted, its a good idea, I just hope they fix that one thing that plagues other clients. With Bittorrent, typically, you're sharing larger files, with this, the intent (though I'm sure it will be used for other things as well) is to share smaller files with close friends. Hopefully, this will be taken into account in the final version.
But that's the lovely nature of Firefox. The Mozilla Foundation can concentrate on building a better *browser* while leaving the API open to developers who want a little more from Firefox via Extensions.
I think plain, vanilla FF is a wonderful browser. The Extensions I use just make it better....for me. I don't expect my roommate or my girlfriend to run the same extensions I do, or even run any.
The last time slashdot covered this the response was "come back when this is more than vapoware." Well, this is still nothing more than a bunch of slides. What has changed since the 28th when the story was last published? (Nothing, it seems)
I can imagine the FUD campaign the RIAA would run against FF and Microsoft running their own to put FF into the category of P2P software, which will result it in being banned from most businesses.
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And in other news, the Open Office suite has been released as a Firefox Plugin. Analysts predict that not only will this draw users away from from IE, but millions will also switch away from Office.
An interesting quote from the article, "What we're really waiting for is someone to release a linux distribution as a Firefox plugin. This will spell certain death to both IE and Windows simultaneously. The big hurdle is to figure out how to launch Firefox before the OS has even booted."
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Allpeers certainly does look awesome, but what's it doing in a web browser? It belongs in an IM client like GAIM or as a standalone app. I've been waiting forever for an easy way to share files with my friends, but I'm not crazy about the idea of tying up 100MB of RAM leaving Firefox open all the time.
The extreme unix view is to get a lot of small apps that each do exactly 1 task and do it well. This has some advantages. The first is that the builder of such an app can concentrate on just 1 problem, another is that you should be able to mix and match. If I want to search through a number of files for a text string I can combine a number of tools as I want.
The disadvantage is also clear, you gotta learn about a lot of apps to do one end task. In windows search is simple. In linux it is two apps each with different syntax rules. Windows search is limited, linux search is complicated.
Another way of doing things is in adding similar functionality to an existing application. Making it feature rich or bloated (depending on your point of view). Web browsers are an obvious example. Should for instance bookmarks be part of the browser or a seperate app? What about a media player? Should the capability to view the source be an internal app (ala firefox) or an external app (IE and opera). Email? Well it is part of the internet isn't it? RSS? XML viewer? XML entry?
Get the picture?
I don't like suits either but then I am not a typical user. I prefer my email and browser and p2p and media player to be nicely seperated. Then again I can live with the fact that I have first to click on a link then choose to save the torrent file then go azureus select open torrent, select the torrent and finally be able to start leeching.
You would be suprised how many people would scream bloody murder if they had to do this.
Sadly it seems that at least in the browser sphere you and I are loosing. Feature creep seems to be a way of life for browser developers.
Anyway I wish the company luck, they already seem to have gotten themselves some free advertising and without even having a product to showoff. Good job.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What is with all this social networking crap? Egads. The only technological phenomenon more annoying than blogorrhea (and Mac fans) is this recent notion that everything I do online should be intimately shareable with everyone I know. Hello? If I wanted social interaction, I'd go hang out with people instead of huddling in a dimly lit corner of my basement staring bleary-eyed at the cold, pale glow of my CRT.
Come on people. Am I the only one who still does shit alone on the Internet?
</troll>
And yes, I too appreciate the irony of spurting antisocial rants on a community web site.
No, the "killer app" for Firefox is, has been, and forever shall be Adblock.
Instant message programs and file sharing programs are a dime a dozen, but Adblock is what separates Firefox from other web browsers. It'll have a far more profound effect on the web, too, as eventually it'll become clear to advertisers that the conventional massive blinking ad in the middle of the site's content just isn't as effective as the innocuous text-only ad, because users are far more likely to block an annoying ad than they are a simple text ad.
Yes, it's a bit silly to speculate about whether AllPeers will or won't be the killer app for Firefox when you can't even see it yet. That said, Michael is making an important point, and I'm afraid that a lot of people aren't grokking it because they attach too much baggage to the term "P2P".
We're not making a Kazaa clone. We're giving people the possibility to share files with their friends and family inside Firefox. This *could* be a killer app because it gives people a real motivation to switch their non-technical contacts (especially family) to Firefox so that they can share with them. In other words, we're adding network effects to Firefox.
Does this mean that AllPeers will be the killer app for Firefox? Who knows. But the idea itself isn't patently ridiculous. If you want to make your own judgement, please register for our beta and check it out when it's available. Also, read my blog if you want more technical nitty-gritty about what we're up to.
Peer Pressure