Napster and Friends
(aka File Sharing Exchanges)
One of the biggest stories to rock (or more precisely, rap) the music world in last year is the advent of Internet file sharing programs (Napster, Gnutella, Scour, etc.).
As you undoubtedly know, these exchanges allow users to sign-on and share files with other users who are currently signed onto the system. While that sounds good in theory, in practice, the exchanges are only effective for those of us lucky enough to have broadband access; the average MP3 format is about a 5 MB.
Being heavy users of these programs, we thought it would make sense to review the primary offerings and weigh in with our favorites.
First, a few definitions. There are currently three flavors of Internet file sharing exchanges:
- Centrally Indexed Exchanges
These exchanges distribute, free of charge, software which allows you to log onto their server(s). As you log-on, a description of a portion of the files on your hard (typically MP3 files and other media files) is automatically uploaded to their server. These files are searchable and made available to other users who are currently logged-unto the system. Likewise, their files are made available to you. Users are able to designate which files on their hard drives are available for sharing. Launched in September 1999, Napster is the original and most well known example of this genre.
| Pros: | | Ease of use, quick searches, excellent selection (in some cases) |
| Cons: | | Lack of privacy (the exchanges monitor which files users have) |
- Peer to Peer Exchanges
Similar to the centrally indexed exchanges, users download a free program which gives access to the exchange; however, there is no central indexing of files. Everyone logged-on has access to everyone else's files. Since there is no central server, each computer logged onto the exchange becomes both a client and a server. Like the centrally indexed exchanges, users are able to designate which files on their hard drives are available for sharing. Gnutella is an example of a peer-to-peer exchange; it has been available since the first quarter of 2000.
| Pros: | | High degree of privacy, good selection, |
| Cons: | | More complex to configure, slower searches, higher bandwidth requirements |
- Gateway Portals
The gateway portals are a new class of Internet portal which have just become available in the last month or so. The distinguishing feature of the gateway portals is that users typically do not need to download software before searching and downloading files. Also, the gateway portals aren't really exchanges, but rather give users access to the other exchanges. The user simply goes to the website (e.g., www.zeropaid.com/gnusearch/) and types in the name of the file they are looking for (like a Yahoo search). The portal then searches Gnutella, Napster, Scour or one of the other file exchanges and returns the results. In this way, the portals are similar to meta-search engines like C4 and Dogpile, except that they specialize in searching the file sharing exchanges. ZeroPaid is an example of a gateway that searches the Gnutella network.
| Pros: | | Good to excellent selection, higher degree of privacy than exchanges, simplicity of use |
| Cons: | | A bit clunky in their current incarnation, users can download files but can not upload files. |
Centrally Indexed Exchanges
The big four of the centrally indexed exchanges are Napster, CuteMX, iMesh and Scour Exchange. Of the four, our favorites are Napster for music and CuteMX for other media.
Napster (www.napster.com) has by far the greatest music selection of the centrally indexed exchanges. This is a recent development (in the last few weeks) as Napster's technical team finally figured out how to connect all of their servers. This is not immediately apparent when you log onto Napster (you still get the number of users and files at the bottom left corner of your screen, and it typically says something like 5,000 users sharing 500,000 files). But as soon as you do a search, you will be overwhelmed with incredible results, indicating that you actually have access to orders of magnitude more files than the numbers indicate. Other handy features unique to Napster include search fields for both Artist and Song Title as well as well as data on how the song was ripped (bit rate). Also unique to Napster is data on the distance the file is from your computer (measured in Ping, the higher the ping, the further the file is and presumably the longer the transfer). Having said this, Napster is only set-up for trading music files.
CuteMX (www.cutemx.com) is a great file sharing exchange which works for music and other media. They are our current favorite for searching for MPEGs, JPEGs . Their interface is intuitive and logical, but lacks the ability to search both on Artist as well as Song title. Also, CuteMX is suffering from low user awareness; this may be do to the specter of the recording industry's lawsuit against Napster. Unfortunately for CuteMX, Napster is building serious network effects while CuteMX dawdles.
Peer to Peer Exchanges
At this point, there are two to primary peer to peer exchanges, Gnutella and Ian Clarke's Free Network Project. The Free Network Project is promising, especially from a security standpoint, but it is not yet ready for prime time.
There are at least eight different versions of Gnutella*. Our favorites are Gnuetella 0.56 (www.gnutella.wego.com), and FURI. (www.jps.net/williamw/furi/).
Our favorite Gnuetella clone is FURI. FURI is Java based, so it can run on MACs as well as PCs. FURI's interface is more domesticated than Gnuetlla 0.56 (see below) and includes an interesting chat option, similar to Napster and CuteMX. The only complaint we have about FURI is that it takes a robust computer to operate it (at least 100 megs of RAM and a cable modem or better). FURI also has the capability to filter your searches, similar to the exchanges, so you will only get the type of files you are looking for (e.g., MP3s, MPEGs, AVIs).
What we like about Gnutella 0.56 is also what we hate about it. O.56 is raw, similar to running DOS 2.0 or driving a Dodge Viper. The Gnutella network is immense, and offers everything you can imagine, including music files, videos and computer programs. On the other hand, it is a little unwieldy to navigate and is slower than the exchanges to search. Also, your computer becomes part of the network while you are logged on, so it can absorb significant resources.
Gateway Portals
Gateway portals have been around for about a month. The newest group of file sharing applications, gateway portals don't really offer file sharing at all. As a user, you can use these portals to search for a particular MP3 (or MPEG), but others are not able to search the files on your computer. This is fine, as long as other people continue to offer-up their files on Gnuetella or Napster. In the medium to long term, we believe these portals will offer the best access to music on the web, but they are a bit primitive today.
As of this writing, the best gateway portal is ZeroPaid (www.zeropaid.com). It is the ultimate in simplicity: type the name of the song you are looking for in the box and hit enter. The portal automatically searches Gnutella for available matches and returns the results. Unfortunately, the folks at ZeroPaid have not made retrieving the songs as elegant. ZeroPaid requires you to establish a disk storage locker and to download songs from Gnutella to the locker before downloading to your computer. We hope they streamline the downloading procedure ……. stayed tuned.
iMesh recently introduced a gateway portal, but requires users to use their exchange software to download the files. It is not clear if the iMesh system is searching their own exchange, Gnutella or some other exchange. Finally, we understand that the folks who brought you FURI will introduce and gateway portal later this summer.
* How to use Gnutella and FURI
After downloading the software for Gnutella or one of its clones, the next step is to find an Internet Protocol Host address (commonly referred to as an IP Host) of someone who is currently logged onto Gnutella. (Remember, there is no central server, so you have to find someone else just like yourself who happens to be logged-on at the time you want to log on). The IP Host address is a long number punctuated with periods and a colon: e.g., 129.133.159.20:6346). The websites which distribute Gnuetella often provide lists of potential hosts or other resources where you can find host addresses. The good news is that once you have connected to Gnutella, your computer will automatically store a number of potential IP Hosts to connect to the next time you want to sign on. Of course, if you don't sign on for a while (a couple of weeks) you will probably have to go through the IP Host process again.
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