your d/l success rate...

[theknife]

lately, i've been checking out a variety of p2p clients (Kazaa, Shareazaa, WinMx, IMesh lite etc)...seems like i get plenty of hits in my searches, but my percentage of successful d/l's is something in the neighborhood of 5%. everything is mostly unavailable (or more sources needed, depending on the client) or endlessly queued. makes me wonder if it's just me having this experience (maybe relative to what i'm searching for?) or is the general state of p2p that bad? what's percentage of d/l's that you attempt do you successfully complete?

[JackSpratts]

yeah. things have sure changed in a few short years but so have i and i no longer spend any real time on open, general-interest networks. the ones i do use are well up to the task however.

i get 100% or as close as can be measured with waste and maybe 80% with soulseek (but it can take a while). as long as i cue multiple sources and am willing to build folders from different hosts i'm closer to 100% on ss.

for all of that when i do occasionally check out the big networks i'm disappointed how barren the pantries seem to be.

i don't use it but i guess irc is the place to be.

- js.

[GameShark]

I'm pretty content with DC. The hubs I use usually have what I am looking for, and slots open fast.

I know what you all mean about the lack of suffiency in downloading some good stuff. Things sure have changed as Jackspratts put it.

[AweShucks]

I only use one network ED2K with Emule. I would say I average well over 95% with it. Emule can be slow so patience is needed to use it but the amount of fakes is far lower when you use link sites like shareconnector , sharelive Pleasuredome etc. The amount of content is unmatched and sources are plenty for the most part when using the link sites providing the release has been out awhile. I don't have a problem finding things regardless of what it is really Movies, Full Albums, Software it's all there.

It can be a bit tricky to get a high ID if your firewalled. It's probably the #1 reason why people don't like the network because they fail to get a high ID which makes the network only about 50% effective and even slower.

[pod]

I think part of the frustration of seasoned P2Pers may have to do with the stuff you're looking for. You already have so much, that anything you look for now is almost bound to be obscure. I know some of the things I search for come up with slim sources, but if I really want something I will get it eventually.

I rarely use IRC, speaking of endless queues. Just takes too long, now that I'm out of 'the scene', but I guess the bot search engines help. Another overlooked source is newsgroups, but it can get a little tricky getting a reliable feed. That said, I'm mostly interested in single tracks, not whole albums (just buy the damn CD, geez

[napho]

This is why it's a good idea to employ lots of different methods to obtain what you want. Between the Donkey network, IRC, and newsgroups you should be able to get most of what you want unless it's just not out there. Kazaa and the rest are good for quick downloads of popular stuff and junk.

[Gutrguy]

Originally Posted by napho

Kazaa and the rest are good for quick downloads of popular stuff and junk.

True and also untrue...

i use Imesh to get single tracks, suprnova.org to get full albums and entire volumes by any particular artist.

Imesh (fasttrack network) is rapidly becoming quite a pain in the ass. Yesterday i was searching for a Dixie Chicks song (Goodbye Earl for those interested), i got plenty of hits, but of the 120 files for this one song i downloaded, not 1 of them played! Seems this thing is happening more and more often. Get a 2 mb file and when you open it, you get 10 min of dead air....or it will play fine for 1 min, then you get 'swooshes' or 'clicks and clacks'

Seems every time im on a big p2p network its trash mp3's or unending que...take your chances...lol

If you want to measure success as complete files, Imesh usually gets about 95%, if you are talking about file accuracy, imesh gets 35%...and if you are talking about my success in sifting through the mess to get what i want, 98%..that one song is only the second song that has eluded me....

[albed]

I've been noticing winmx supernodes seem to be screwing up in the daytime but getting better at night. My queue used to fill to 100 since I have a good selection of large files, but now that's only at night, in the day its 20-40 and it seems to get dumped frequently. I also get more starts at night.

A couple months ago daytime was best with all the part-time users.

Seems like a sabotage effort to me.

[theknife]

well, i think Pod is probably correct in that long time p2p users tend to look for more obscure tracks, and therefore have a harder time...

...but i spent most of the weekend looking for some common cuts by The Clash, and of the 4 or 5 clients i spent time with, only SoulSeek came through with max results in a minimum of time and effort. it's a shame, but the p2p world is clearly a pretty fragmented place

[JackSpratts]

Originally Posted by theknife

it's a shame, but the p2p world is clearly a pretty fragmented place

yep. but when canada finally fires up a decent p2p it’ll be Goodnight Irene to the riaa. you could legally run a napster clone (original) - the best system/client for grabbing files yet unleashed. if i lived there it'd be running right now.

- js.

[Maze]

Wish we had this again...

[BRADNEY]

Hello anyone that remembers me - I could not log in as Jonno so I regestered again.

Since my stroke 3 years ago I spend a lot of time downloading from WinMX and I have noticed that recently there are fewer tracks on offer and if you join a queue chances you go in a loop and keep getting put to the back
I wonder if there is a way around this or are all sharers not actually sharing at all?

I can't type all that fast but I wish all my old friends the best and keep sharing


JONNO1066

[Maze]

of course I remember you Jonno. That statement about a stroke though threw me ...please take care of yourself!

[albed]

Welcome back Jonno. Try putting your old avatar up and everyone will remember you. Thought maybe you'd gone the way of LBF, DarkmanX and probably pb8.

A lot of jerks on winmx just let people cycle through and time out without uploading to them so it just looks like they're sharing. I messaged one and he said it was firewall problems but I caught him a month later doing the same thing. Nothing you can do.

Keep at it though, winmx varies radically from day to day and it still has occassional good days when things are great, though they seem to be getting rarer.

[TankGirl]

If anything I want is on Bittorrent, that's definitely my #1 choice. Faster than anything else, and if a download gets started (torrent is alive, tracker is up) it finishes almost always.

WASTE is my second choice. As it is friends sharing with friends, downloads are practically guaranteed to finish but being a single source technology the speed depends much on who is on the other side.

eMule comes third. Plenty of movies and plenty of music available as AweShucks mentions. If the file has multiple complete sources the success is almost guaranteed; if it is a rare item with only a single source or no complete sources at the time of the request it is a question of luck whether you get it or not. Patience is needed in any case.

As a last resort I may try WinMX but it is such a lousy network nowadays that I rarely bother to go there.

- tg

[Maze]

"such a lousy network nowadays " ... I know ...I wonder why that is TankGirl?

[zombywoof]

[TankGirl]

Originally Posted by Maze

"such a lousy network nowadays " ... I know ...I wonder why that is TankGirl?

The two main reasons are probably: plenty of leeching and a poor multisourcing implementation.

As a contrast we could ask why Bittorrent is so good at delivering what you want at high speeds. There every file is effectively a project and a network of its own. This lends to different kind of dynamics where instead of trying to get dozens of different files simultaneously (to compensate for the inevitable queuing) people focus on one or two files at a time, and consequently have the bandwidth to get them fast in the first place. Then there is a strong anti leech feature built into the system architecture itself: the more bandwidth you give the more bandwidth you get (up to a point where you reach your capacity either upstream or downstream). Together these two factors lead to a situation where there is no queuing at all: the downloads start almost immediately, and the speed usually catches up in 10-30 minutes, often maxing out your download bandwidth. The main downside is that the system requires a critical mass of interested downloaders to work as intended, so it is not for rarities. You also need an external website to get the torrents, and relying on trackers (just another name for a dedicated server) makes the system centralized and thereby more vulnerable.

WinMX and Ed2K (eDonkey, eMule) networks both lack the strict file-as-a-project focus of Bittorrent, leading to bandwidths being split between numerous files and a need to manage queues. Both suffer from serious queuing delays but Ed2K still manages to deliver much better thanks to its better multisourcing implementation. WinMX does not have any kind of built-in anti-leech system; eMule has a credit system for uploaders but it doesn’t function well when there is heavy queuing – the rewards come too slow to make a tangible impact.

- tg

[goldie]

ot - sorry.

albed, have you heard anything about pb8?

we had alot of fun chatting then he just vanished. he was just doing so-so last time i talked with him so as much as i hate to face facts, he prolly has gone to better pastures.

guess i'm just looking for some confirmation about him.

[albed]

Nope. I got the impression that he wasn't too healthy and assume he died or degenerated to where he can't post. He was fun to fight with and I miss him too.