According to CacheLogic's latest report, eDonkey has overtaken bit torrent as the top P2P file sharing network by volume of data (USA Today - BBC) [51% eDonkey, 34% BitTorrent, 10% Fast Track, 6% Gnutella]. It's interesting evidence that users have relatively quickly moved away from Bit Torrent due to long overdue MPAA closure of illicit Bit Torrent web sites and servers. Now this is only an indicator, covering raw data on typical ports, where Gnutella is typically underrepresented. It also gives precedence to video files, which can be up to 1 GB in size. Measure by number of files and the top networks become much closer in usage.

The value of measuring P2P networks is decreasingly relevant. eDonkey the software now runs on both the original eDonkey network and the Overnet network. eMule, a popular eDonkey client uses eDonkey and Kad. There are other clients that support eDonkey like
aMule, xMule, MLdonkey, MindGem, and
Shareaza. TrustyFiles supports eDonkey plus all other major networks (eDonkey, Overnet, Bit Torrent, Gnutella, Gnutella 2, and Kazaa/Fast Track). As P2P software increasingly unites the various P2P protocols into a meta-network, the nature of individual networks will change from client-centered networks to characteristic-oriented networks, where the prevailing design characteristic may be file type (music), source (Creative Commons), community (photographers), or security (darknets).

Marc Freedman

RazorPop, developer of TrustyFiles, the leading multiple network file sharing software with search and download of ALL top networks.

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