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just reading gnutella triggered a really old memory of times when Ares, Limewire and eMule where places to try your luck getting mp3s and software
by itsthecourier 5mo ago
just reading gnutella triggered a really old memory of times when Ares, Limewire and eMule where places to try your luck getting mp3s and software
- felooboolooomba 5mo agoBack in the day as a teenager. Downloaded mp3 that was labelled with title and artist and .mp3 extension. It wasn't. What it was caused me to wipe my hard drive and reinstall everything. Fkuc that shit. Apart from that, many good stuff was had.
- leeoniya 5mo agoor was it Windows hiding file extensions by default and you downloaded a .mp3.exe file?
- netsharc 5mo agoIsn't it just great how a decision made by some genius in Microsoft decades ago caused so much confusion and mess. Even on Windows 11 the default is to hide extensions, because, geez, wouldn't want to confuse people with change after decades of it being like that. Although, was the hiding something that the Mac introduced? The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launched to handle the file is odd anyway... I wonder if the Windows spyware infrastructure measures what % of people turn off extension hiding..
- throwawaysoxjje 5mo agoMacs originally didn’t have filename extensions because the file type was stored as metadata in the file system
- hnlmorg 5mo agoThat really is a superior way of doing things too. Or at least it would have been if that metadata were transferred with the file itself in all protocols.
- chuckadams 5mo agoThe mac started out without using extensions at all, the type was embedded in the metadata. That's still possible now, but it's largely derived from extensions first. I believe Finder shows all extensions by default. It certainly does in details mode.
- anal_reactor 5mo ago> The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launched to handle the file is odd anyway... I challenge you to suggest a better solution - the best that Linux came up with is a giant database of all magic numbers known to God and praying that something matches... sometimes it does, and sometimes it even matches the correct program.
- nofriend 5mo agothe linux way works tho
- NooneAtAll3 5mo agoit really doesn't hiding information from user is not good by any means
- netsharc 5mo agoBut relying on them to tell the OS what type a file is, or allowing them to change the extension, isn't good either. lena.jpg doesn't become lena.pdf by changing the last 3 letters of the filename..
- tardedmeme 5mo agoIt gets really complicated when you get into overlapping file types, like with ISOBMFF. An .mp4 can also, simultaneously, be a valid .3gp because those are profiles of ISOBMFF. On the other extreme, JPEG is secretly two different incompatible formats (JFIF and Exif), and a video file with a different codec in the same container, or even a different track layout, might as well be a different format.
- NooneAtAll3 5mo ago> allowing them to change the extension, isn't good either why not? power to the people. At worst it just breaks. At best you get filetype chamelions that are straight up cool, yet harmless
- felooboolooomba 5mo agoNope. It had been renamed from .avi. CP.
- GaryBluto 5mo agoYou'd think it wouldn't be that hard for a client to automatically check if a file is what it claims to be after downloading.
- culi 5mo agoDocuwiki (not to be confused with DokuWiki) is still the most thorough source I've seen for niche documentaries. https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Category:Name https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Category:Name It is all ed2k links. Unfortunately modern clients for ed2k are quite lacking
- msm_ 5mo agoAnd yet it doesn't work without JS (I think it's because cloudflare WAF, but still)
- cwnyth 5mo agoOnce you get past Cloudfare, you can use it without JS.
- ck45 5mo agoed2k, nice! That reminds me of this superb piece of software: MLDonkey (https://github.com/ygrek/mldonkey https://github.com/ygrek/mldonkey), written in OCaml.
- culi 5mo agoThat is really neat. I wasn't aware of it. Multi-protocol always sounds ideal but I've had bad luck finding any that still work. Thanks for sharing!
- rrgok 5mo agoShareaza was the goat. It had 4 or 5 protocols.
- rickcarlino 5mo agoIt is still around! I see network traffic from it on major GWebCache instances.
- cwnyth 5mo agoBearShare, too, which also included pictures and video. I don't remember ever getting a virus from it, but I also kept extensions visible.
- suzzer99 5mo agoI still get spam emails on the one-off email address I used to sign up for Bearshare.