Personal Dork Assistant

Aarrrrr

Kazaa (Lite) has a diverse range of material, but it's not very deep. Direct Connect has plenty of stuff, but the big trading hubs have high trading requirements, and the whole op/kick/chat thing is way too IRC. If I wanted to deal with that kind of crap, I'd be on IRC. Gnutella just flat out sucks. And I can't imagine how much of a loser you have to be to waste time downloading and piecing together chopped up files on Usenet.

So what makes a good P2P program?

• Content. Duh.
• Easy to use. At some point it's just easier to go out and buy the damn DVD or CD.
• Anonymity. I don't want to be your friend, I just want your files.
• Leechability. If I cared about fair, I'd pay for the content. Besides, uploading sucks on an ADSL line.
• Multi-platform. Windows and Mac, and Linux would be nice for the people that care.

BitTorrent actually comes pretty close to fulfilling all those requirements. The protocol is robust enough to support simultaneous downloading of random file parts from different sources, and you're uploading your part of the file to others even as you're downloading, with resumption of interrupted downloads. It's not quite as generalized as Kazaa or Gnutella, but it is a great system for top-down distribution of specific files, and the available bandwidth scales nicely with the popularity of the data. The system isn't quite as useful for typical MP3s, where the file sources are diffused all over the Net, but it's been successful for tapers who can rip a live show and put it in a central location where interested people can go grab it, but not overwhelming the host bandwidth in the process. It's a godsend for the IRC groups, where a central core can put the files up for download on a webpage instead of having to deal with the waves of lame leeches lining up for limited download slots on the main channel. A good example is anime, where the fansub groups can rip a show straight off of Japanese TV, subitle the episode, and put it up for the ravenous otaku within days of its original broadcast, and many months before it comes to American DVD. Plain old American TV is available, too, but it's unnecessary with the Tivo around. No, I don't need every single fucking episode of Buffy on my hard disk. Haven't seen a good tracker for real software, but those probably aren't overtly advertised on the Net, lest the Powers that Be strike them down.