Two peers shaking hand-cartoon

Peer -to-Peer,It is a peculiar topic to talk about since in an ordinary network jargon. Generally it is meant for connecting computers across the network to work as one and sharing the required data by its user.

What the reason behind that today the users across the cyberspace are paying attention towards it? What is the software available and why are the authorities running a lot to make peer -to-peer a thing of the past? More questions arise as we move deep towards this topic. Client-server architecture is one of conventional way. In this type, the computers (servers) let its computers (clients) to access it and use its resources. All computers are linked to a network and at any point of time any computer can act as a server and another computer that uses its resources is the client.

Software such as Kazza or Napster on your computer contacts the internet when you install it. And you can download any kind of necessary stuff through the internet. Peer-to-peer file sharing is based on this type of protocol.

Napster was launched in may 1999 based on this protocol. This was first peer-to-peer software but this was not in the truest sense of the world because it still needed users to connect to the main server and once the client was identified, additional file transfer was passed on to the nodes. Kazaa and eDonkey were the advanced software later. And much other software came up with different idea and scheme and brought great achievement in the field of technology.

After around 1999 many changes have occurred in the world of peer-to-peer computer network. Napster has since closed down owing to a ruling by the American courts. Napster is still available, but in a form where it is no longer striking enough for P2P users.

In the recent years, newer peer-to-peer software like Bit Torrent has raised its head and has become the latest rage amongst the peer-to-peer users. eDonkey was the other software which was between the Napster and Bit Torrent. It was running smoothly and strongly until the appearance of Bit Torrent. eDonkey is still pretty much available, but its favorite rating amongst users has dropped to a very large extent.

We will talk about the mostly used peer-to-peer software in the world and how to handle them in the coming section but before that you should never forget that downloading the stuff from the internet like music or movies that you do not own and do not have a copyright is illegal.

So we don’t overlook such activities. The information provided here is only for the sake of informing you as a reader but not giving you the ideas to download such stuff illegally. So you should be careful of what is legal and illegal on the internet and don’t do the activities that could possibly land you in jail. So with that let’s move into the software mentioned above and understand how it works.

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