A new serverless p2p network

[TankGirl]

Following the example of Morpheus and WinMX FileNavigator has also started beta testing its own proprietary p2p network. Expect to see even more competition on the field of serverless p2p in the coming months.

- tg

[pgs92109]

File Navigator first came out about 6 months ago. I have tried several versions of it, and never once have I been able to connect to a server. It seems awfully buggy to me. Anyone had any luck with this program?? And when did it become serverless?

[relic]

I've had the same troubles as the above napsterite pointed out. I tried it shortly after it came out and was only able to log onto the servers once or twice. Never downloaded anything using it though. I have yet to try the serverless version of it though.

[mike4947]

One problem, neither WinMx or Morpheus are true serverless P2P networks. Both use their proprietory servers for initial hits on searches to speed up the searchs from Gnutella and imeshs "let's play 50 games of freecell and see if we have any results" searches.

[nanook]

so is there really such a thing as "true p2p"?

r there any out there and has anyone tried one out.

and how do they do it without the server?

thanks!

[zombywoof]

When I first downloaded filenavigator, it worked great but then eventually, it stopped connecting to the servers and I stopped using it.

[TankGirl]

Originally posted by nanook
so is there really such a thing as "true p2p"?

r there any out there and has anyone tried one out.

and how do they do it without the server?

thanks!

Most people would probably agree Gnutella being 'true' or 'pure' p2p. The network seems to keep living and breathing indefinitely on a voluntary population of private computers. Public entry points (websites with fresh listings of peers in the network) are still needed for the newcomers to find their way into the network but for the active users it is usually possible to reconnect without any external help. This is possible because each Gnutella client maintains a list of active peers (often called 'host cache') which it memorizes between sessions. When reconnecting, the client scans through its memorized host cache to find an active peer. Even if most of the listed peers would have gone offline it is enough to find one that is still alive and with the help of that peer you are back in the network in no time.

On the other hand, Napster and OpenNap are definitely not pure p2p even if they utilize p2p technology to provide content into the network and to distribute it between peers. All messaging and crucial control traffic goes through the servers and should the servers go down, only ongoing transfers will finish. Left on their own, the users become virtually disconnected from each other, not being able to message each other or initiate new transfers.

Morpheus is a borderline case. People seem to be able to reconnect to the network without Music City's entry point servers and the network itself might also remain functional without Music City's supporting server farm. However, there does not seem to be any easy mechanism for the user to feed new peer addresses into the client in case they would be needed. This would prevent newcomers (who have yet no memorized peer listings) and less active users (with outdated peer lists) from entering the network. If such a mechanism is provided (either by MC or by a friendly hacker), Morpheus could be considered pure p2p. Similar remarks apply to WinMX's WPNP which also uses public servers to help people getting connected.

- tg

[nanook]

thanks for the time spent explaining all this, tg!!!!

would this mean that a pure p2p wouldn't have the community setting that our dear friend Napster had?

i guess to me that would indeed seem a kind of leeching system.

beyond what a lot of people think, Napster, to me anyways was much more than just a way of obtaining wonderful oldies, obscurities and feeling out new and up-coming music.

it was a community i liked being a part of and i liked that people could check out my collection of music and find that us two people seemed so in tuned with each other, in our taste, we could have been close friends. Which has become the case in some instances.

the news, stories, personal and otherwise, jokes, surveys and even the fighting. It all created this big family.

Personalities came through in time, crystal clear. Leaving u feeling that u knew them as well as u could, being in cyber-space and all.


but anyway, i'm way off topic.

again, thanks for the info!!!

[TankGirl]

Originally posted by nanook:
would this mean that a pure p2p wouldn't have the community setting that our dear friend Napster had?

i guess to me that would indeed seem a kind of leeching system.

Community setting was one of the best things about Napster but this dimension of p2p is really not related to the 'purity' of the technology chosen. It is perfectly possible to create highly community-oriented networks with pure p2p - it is just that Gnutella as a pioneer of pure p2p chose and embraced another orientation. Gnutella's anonymous and asocial nature as well as its heavy use of bandwidth resources have created general misconceptions about pure p2p. Morpheus has already demonstrated that it is possible to build a solid, efficient and well-scaling infrastructure on pure p2p. Building a socially intelligent environment on top of such an infrastructure is not a technical challenge but rather a question of development policy.

Originally posted by nanook:
beyond what a lot of people think, Napster, to me anyways was much more than just a way of obtaining wonderful oldies, obscurities and feeling out new and up-coming music.

it was a community i liked being a part of and i liked that people could check out my collection of music and find that us two people seemed so in tuned with each other, in our taste, we could have been close friends. Which has become the case in some instances.

the news, stories, personal and otherwise, jokes, surveys and even the fighting. It all created this big family.

Personalities came through in time, crystal clear. Leaving u feeling that u knew them as well as u could, being in cyber-space and all.

Very good points and observations! The beautiful reunion of Napsterites on this board is a good demonstartion of the community spirit living on and finding new ways to express itself even if Napster itself has been neutered by the RIAA.

- tg