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Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

rickcarlino.com

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Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#61

Post by d3Xt3r »

Sophira wrote: post #59

I'd say the biggest reason that Gnutella (and other services like it) is no longer in much use is because for a long, long time now the easiest way to download music for free, without ads, and with virtually zero chance of getting caught, has been via YouTube and downloader clients. For most practical uses, it's good enough. You wouldn't want to share the resulting downloads (not only is the audio quality slightly de…

It's got nothing to do with YouTube - people just don't download music any more, period. At least not like they used to, back in the late 90s and 00s. Instead, most people these days stream music from the myriad of streaming services, and yes even YouTube - it's a convenience thing. Of course, there are exceptions like audiophiles, indie/niche music, or general offline usage (flights, roaming etc); but the vast majority just stream these days because it's so much more convenient..

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#62

Post by superkuh »

>Imagine we all had HTTP servers running on our laptops and could give our friends an IP address whenever we needed to transfer a file. In theory, an HTTP server on everyone's machine would be enough for file sharing, right?

Opera browser at one point included a personal webserver built in called Opera Unite. This webserver was accessed by the public through the free web proxy service that Opera also integrated. That way your personal home computer hosted website was behind an Opera IP address. It was all automagic. I really wish it had caught on. Simple static only hosting is a very small attack surface.

Firefox recently started offering VPN services built in to the browser. I think this is the perfect time to try to bring back static personal webservers in the web browser.

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#63

Post by kazinator »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #61
Sophira wrote: post #59

I'd say the biggest reason that Gnutella (and other services like it) is no longer in much use is because for a long, long time now the easiest way to download music for free, without ads, and with virtually zero chance of getting caught, has been via YouTube and downloader clients. For most practical uses, it's good enough. You wouldn't want to share the resulting downloads (not only is the audio quality slightly de…

It's got nothing to do with YouTube - people just don't download music any more, period. At least not like they used to, back in the late 90s and 00s. Instead, most people these days stream music from the myriad of streaming services, and yes even YouTube - it's a convenience thing. Of course, there are exceptions like audiophiles, indie/niche music, or general offline usage (flights, roaming etc); but the vast major…

I have not downloaded in a long time because ... well ... I downloaded all the good music years ago and they mostly stopped making it. :)

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#64

Post by kazinator »

Sophira wrote: post #59

I'd say the biggest reason that Gnutella (and other services like it) is no longer in much use is because for a long, long time now the easiest way to download music for free, without ads, and with virtually zero chance of getting caught, has been via YouTube and downloader clients. For most practical uses, it's good enough. You wouldn't want to share the resulting downloads (not only is the audio quality slightly de…

After YT downloading and what not, there is still Bittorrent.

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#65

Post by lnrd »

Sophira wrote: post #59

I'd say the biggest reason that Gnutella (and other services like it) is no longer in much use is because for a long, long time now the easiest way to download music for free, without ads, and with virtually zero chance of getting caught, has been via YouTube and downloader clients. For most practical uses, it's good enough. You wouldn't want to share the resulting downloads (not only is the audio quality slightly de…

Spotify killed the concept of downloading music, either legally or not.

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#66

Post by Findecanor »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #61
Sophira wrote: post #59

I'd say the biggest reason that Gnutella (and other services like it) is no longer in much use is because for a long, long time now the easiest way to download music for free, without ads, and with virtually zero chance of getting caught, has been via YouTube and downloader clients. For most practical uses, it's good enough. You wouldn't want to share the resulting downloads (not only is the audio quality slightly de…

It's got nothing to do with YouTube - people just don't download music any more, period. At least not like they used to, back in the late 90s and 00s. Instead, most people these days stream music from the myriad of streaming services, and yes even YouTube - it's a convenience thing. Of course, there are exceptions like audiophiles, indie/niche music, or general offline usage (flights, roaming etc); but the vast major…

Many Youtube-to-mp3 sites exist, though.

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#67

Post by GuB-42 »

gbildson wrote: post #55
chuckadams wrote: post #13

Hot take: the simple reason Gnutella declined is that it was replaced by Bittorrent.

Gnutella's original sin was that it combined distributed search with distributed download. In a rational world, that would be smart and good but in a litigious world, that was too sophisticated for the Supreme Court and they ruled it as infringing on copyright through inducement of the user. Gnutella clients, like other P2P clients with search, got sued out of existence. Bittorrent offloaded the distributed search on…

I don't think it has much to do with legality.

For me the biggest problem is authenticity. On most of the decentralized P2P networks of that time is that you never know what you are getting. Look for some Disney movie, get porn. Very common back in the days. Of course you also had all the malware, scams, etc... More generally, it didn't do much to incentive good behavior (sharing).

Bittorrent, with its private trackers had some accountability, ratios, etc... The protocol itself favors peers that give the most in return.

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#69

Post by bawolff »

> Gnutella has gone mostly forgotten. Some of that is because it was a component technology hidden beneath more visible projects like LimeWire. The other half of this is that the walled garden model of modern platforms means most internet users don't even remember what a filesystem is anymore.

Really? Not going to mention bit torrent?

Gnutella died because bit torrent took over in popularity. Bit torrent only did the parts that scaled pretty well, so it wasn't a true replacement, but it turned out that its difficult to go after index sites in foreign countries, so nobody minded putting index sites back on the http web.

Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It

#70

Post by bawolff »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #61
Sophira wrote: post #59

I'd say the biggest reason that Gnutella (and other services like it) is no longer in much use is because for a long, long time now the easiest way to download music for free, without ads, and with virtually zero chance of getting caught, has been via YouTube and downloader clients. For most practical uses, it's good enough. You wouldn't want to share the resulting downloads (not only is the audio quality slightly de…

It's got nothing to do with YouTube - people just don't download music any more, period. At least not like they used to, back in the late 90s and 00s. Instead, most people these days stream music from the myriad of streaming services, and yes even YouTube - it's a convenience thing. Of course, there are exceptions like audiophiles, indie/niche music, or general offline usage (flights, roaming etc); but the vast major…

Sure, but people do download movies & tv. Maybe not as much as in the heyday, but that usecase is still alive.
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