(Giving me flashbacks to the days of the Slyck forums!)
As first torrents, then cyberlockers, and then streaming came to dominate, the other P2P networks and programs did one of the following:
- Shrunk to a much smaller number of users but still linger on.
- Software stopped being developed, domain name lost
- Purposely closed down to avoid legal consequences
- Pivoted to something else (like legal downloads or streaming e.g. Napster, Audio Galaxy, or a different P2P network, e.g. Limewire went from Gnutella to BitTorrent to… web file transfer?)
Every now and then, I try a Kad/ed2k client but soon return to torrents. E.g. a few months ago I tried out aMule on Linux… and got a LowID. 23 years after I first started using it, I still can’t dodge LowID 😂 It does have content, though.
Compared to previous times I revisited Kad/ed2k, some sites/services with ed2k links have now finally disappeared: MoTV (Ministry of Television), TV Underground, ShareTheFiles. I think VeryCD is still going though.
Shareaza is still a thing (at least, a fork of it is), still claiming to be the one P2P app to rule all the networks. One of only three clients left (according to Wikipedia) that still access the Gnutella network.
Just to see what’s up, I installed Gtk-Gnutella (last updated March 2024). I can find a few things in searches, but still waiting for them to begin to download. UPDATE: One just started downloading, although the speed is max 50 Kib/s, ETA is at least a few hours.
I might give a Soulseek client a try, as a hard drive full of music I got from Soulseek in 00s recently died (yes, it lasted 15 years!), and Soulseek seems to be the music P2P that never dies (and has a Linux client).
PS I don’t think Retroshare is a “new iteration”; it’s been going since 2006!
Many of the old file-sharing networks are still around and actively in use. MuWire has a lot of interesting books and recordings. EMule is a good place to find music, including obscure remixes. Gnutella is mostly porn, including child porn that’s so open I feel like it might be part of a law enforcement operation.
Retroshare seems like a p2p Facebook rather than a file-sharing network. I’ve always wanted to get into it, but I don’t know anyone else using it.
Retroshare seems like a p2p Facebook rather than a file-sharing network
It suffers from the (need to be a nerd) barrier. Getting people off Facebook requires the minimum amount of friction possible.
If we’re talking friends or family then build and host a mastodon or matrix server. Call it “Tommy’s Bistro” friends/family only. Even with all of this effort you’re competing against a facebook setting to keep a post restricted to friends/family only.
The p2p aspect is what interests me, though.
MuWire? I thought that was dead. The main dev blew a gasket over something and archived it. I see it’s out of archival now, but I do wonder what brought him back.
I didn’t expect eMule and Gnutella to still be active, but probably didn’t know because I’m on Linux and their clients are Windows only. Others have pointed out linux builds that I somehow hadn’t found until now.
By MuWire, I meant the network, not the software. I wasn’t aware it was being developed again, actually. Maybe the current political climate made the dev feel like his work was needed again. The network never died. I use Linux too. eMule and Gnutella both have Linux clients, but availability might vary from one distro to another. On openSuse Tumbleweed, we have aMule and GTK-Gnutella. Based on the IP addresses I see, they seem more popular in Europe than in the US.
The dev shut down the github page in 2023 and later came back and re-activated it in 2024. Development is not overly active but there have been commits since then.
So that’s where people are getting these beta versions newer than mine. I’ve seen them on the network but I didn’t know if they were legit.
When I got into Retroshare, it was all filesharing, but that was several years ago.
To my knowledge, both eMule and DC++ are still active, but I think private trackers have become the more dominant technology for file sharing.
I’ve never understood private trackers. I have yet to encounter a situation where I can’t locate a file on a public tracker.
And a private tracker doesn’t allow for VPNs? Sounds like an industry honeypot.
Most people use seedboxes for private trackers, which are superior and just as private as a VPN.
But yeah, it’s a different ecosystem and it’s not for everyone.
I do think it has replaced the old DC++ hubs of old.
They aren’t being actively developed are they? And do they are windows only too, last time I checked.
aMule is also available on Linux.
Mldonkey have been updated on August 2024 and it is available on gnu/linux, mac and windows.
What’s the eMule network like these days?
My main use is movies, shows and books. And it is perfectly fine.
What’s the availability for movies and shows like?
Recent stuff? FHD/4K? Availability of more niche content? I am just curious. I used to eMule way back when, but I eventually switched to torrent since they seemed to have offered better retention of older/niche content and high availability of new content.
Well usually FHD, good availability of recent and old stuff, there is a good community of French, Italian and Spanish stuff with English sub. Probably if you prefer 4k and above, torrent is better.
there is a good community of French, Italian and Spanish stuff with English sub
That’s good. But you’d have to know what you are looking for (that’s what I remember from using eMule back in the day), right?
I don’t mind SD if the content is good. Just wondering what is available.
Cheers!
People still use the eMule client but nowadays the community version is the version that gets some updates
https://www.emule-project.com/home/perl/general.cgi?l=1&rm=download
https://github.com/irwir/eMule/releases/
But technically any eMule / KAD compatible client can connect to the servers and download/upload to users there e.g. Mldonkey is another client being used.
It’s been a few years since I was last active on there but back then there was still a healthy amount of users and activity, I suspect it’s still going strong.
As of last I was aware, eMule was still kicking (pun intended)
Afaik the person who wrote winmx is now publishing fopnu and darkmx. So it’s still around, just in a modern iteration.
Didn’t one of the devs also go on to make the DAW called reaper? Great DAW btw
OMG thank you so much. I didn’t know the devs were still active. I used to use winmx all the time.
Yup. The Tixati torrent client is also developed by the same dev team (mainly Kevin Hearn I believe).
I think that the timeline was WinMX, then Tixati, then Fopnu, then DarkMX. (Tixati / Fopnu / DarkMX are still actively developed and updated)
anyone here ever use Winny (the Japanese predecessor?/copycat? of winmx) or “Share” (also Japanese p2p)?
any news about their developers?
