5 ms·

The BT protocol was a significant change in technology allowing files previously too large to share on traditional P2P networks to be shared. Napster and the l

The BT protocol was a significant change in technology allowing files previously too large to share on traditional P2P networks to be shared. Napster and the like were great for 3-4MB files, but anything larger would cause issues. You'd rely mostly on one-source, and if the connection to that source was shaky, the download would take days/weeks, even longer. BT changed this, and turned the idea of popular file=congested networks on it's ear completely. With BT, the more popular the file, the faster your download would go.

Illniyar 12y ago
I used to download huge files in eMule(eDonkey) and Kazza. I've never used Napster, so I can't say about it, but eMule had (and has) the ability to download the same files from multiple users simultaneously. I'm pretty sure Kazza had such an ability as well (the more popular files downloaded faster).
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  I used both Napster and Kazaa, both were entirely too slow to download large files on. I mean, you could, but you'd be waiting a long time. I don't think it really had a whole lot to do with the protocols themselves though, but rather that broadband penetration in the States ramped up really quickly at about the same time Bittorrent came onto the scene. There was probably a short period of time where you could have downloaded TV shows on Kazaa, but that protocol died really fast. Not many people used eDonkey back then. I tried. It was hard to find the stuff I wanted. Right after Kazaa died, both eDonkey and Bittorrent started taking off. Bittorrent just became the most popular protocol.
  - ultramancool 12y ago
    > but rather that broadband penetration in the States ramped up really quickly at about the same time Bittorrent came onto the scene Not only this, but prices for cheap virtual servers dropped like a rock, meaning that many more people could afford them or seedbox providers using them. Not many people running eMule or similar on a 100mbit or gigabit pipe.
  - k__ 12y ago
    What I used back in the days: IRC, there where bots you could talk to. You could ask them what they got and download it. Worked like a charm, even for bigger files. DDL, direct downloads, simple websites where you got links to download what you want. eMule/eDonkey, those where running on my brothers machine day and night and rather good. There were links like bittorrent links back then. AFAIK you could start a DL pause it and switch to another hoster if the first one died.
    - thefreeman 12y ago
      I know there was a large piracy scene centered around AOL chat rooms. With AOL, once an attachment was uploaded to an email once, it could be forwarded endlessly without re-uploading the attachment. Therefore there were dedicated "uppers" who would be given access to private scene FTP dumps. These uppers would create sequences of emails with files attached for various releases (usually individual rar or zip files). They would forward the emails to people who ran bots in the chat rooms. You could request a list of files, and then a sequence of emails based by typing commands in chat. Since the files had already been uploaded, it was very fast for the chat bots to forward the emails as they were requested. It was actually a pretty cool system. I remember calling AOL and giving them a story about how I needed to send email newsletters for my church, so could they please "whitelist" my account. Once that happened, you could send as much email as you wanted without being flagged.
      - daveloyall 12y ago
        I love this thread because it peels back layers of time. I'll go next: There was piracy on the BBSes! :) And let's not forget the binaries groups on Usenet.
        marcosdumay 12y ago
        Yes there was, but by that time piracy happened mostly be people carrying floppies around.
        12y ago
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    I guess things were different here in Europe. I remember in High School (so... 2002ish? BitTorrent existed but there weren't any big popular trackers yet) We'd download a movie from Kazaa in the computer lab during CAD class and then watch during a long lunch break. Kazaa definitely supported using multiple sources. Then when I went to Uni there was a large campus DC++ network with internal 100 MBit downloads.
drewblaisdell 12y ago
I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think post-Napster clients like DC++ made it possible to resume a download from a different source, or pull the same file from multiple sources, by comparing checksums. This made downloading popular files quite a bit faster, and eliminated most of the issues with p2p networks like Napster—it was just much less convenient because you had to search for the peers yourself.
- marrs 12y ago
  Yeah, I think Kazaa and eMule did this as well.
vkjv 12y ago
Also, clumsy as it may have been, the practice of splitting large files into volumes of small RAR files helped.
- josefresco 12y ago
  I remember the agony of having downloaded 50+ separate RAR files via dial-up and having one or several of the RAR files corrupted or missing.
  - mlrtime 12y ago
    and that is why we now have sfv and par2

Illniyar 12y ago

I used to download huge files in eMule(eDonkey) and Kazza. I've never used Napster, so I can't say about it, but eMule had (and has) the ability to download the same files from multiple users simultaneously. I'm pretty sure Kazza had such an ability as well (the more popular files downloaded faster).

vinceguidry 12y ago
I used both Napster and Kazaa, both were entirely too slow to download large files on. I mean, you could, but you'd be waiting a long time. I don't think it really had a whole lot to do with the protocols themselves though, but rather that broadband penetration in the States ramped up really quickly at about the same time Bittorrent came onto the scene. There was probably a short period of time where you could have downloaded TV shows on Kazaa, but that protocol died really fast. Not many people used eDonkey back then. I tried. It was hard to find the stuff I wanted. Right after Kazaa died, both eDonkey and Bittorrent started taking off. Bittorrent just became the most popular protocol.
- ultramancool 12y ago
  > but rather that broadband penetration in the States ramped up really quickly at about the same time Bittorrent came onto the scene Not only this, but prices for cheap virtual servers dropped like a rock, meaning that many more people could afford them or seedbox providers using them. Not many people running eMule or similar on a 100mbit or gigabit pipe.
- k__ 12y ago
  What I used back in the days: IRC, there where bots you could talk to. You could ask them what they got and download it. Worked like a charm, even for bigger files. DDL, direct downloads, simple websites where you got links to download what you want. eMule/eDonkey, those where running on my brothers machine day and night and rather good. There were links like bittorrent links back then. AFAIK you could start a DL pause it and switch to another hoster if the first one died.
  - thefreeman 12y ago
    I know there was a large piracy scene centered around AOL chat rooms. With AOL, once an attachment was uploaded to an email once, it could be forwarded endlessly without re-uploading the attachment. Therefore there were dedicated "uppers" who would be given access to private scene FTP dumps. These uppers would create sequences of emails with files attached for various releases (usually individual rar or zip files). They would forward the emails to people who ran bots in the chat rooms. You could request a list of files, and then a sequence of emails based by typing commands in chat. Since the files had already been uploaded, it was very fast for the chat bots to forward the emails as they were requested. It was actually a pretty cool system. I remember calling AOL and giving them a story about how I needed to send email newsletters for my church, so could they please "whitelist" my account. Once that happened, you could send as much email as you wanted without being flagged.
    - daveloyall 12y ago
      I love this thread because it peels back layers of time. I'll go next: There was piracy on the BBSes! :) And let's not forget the binaries groups on Usenet.
      - marcosdumay 12y ago
        Yes there was, but by that time piracy happened mostly be people carrying floppies around.
        12y ago
- kalleboo 12y ago
  I guess things were different here in Europe. I remember in High School (so... 2002ish? BitTorrent existed but there weren't any big popular trackers yet) We'd download a movie from Kazaa in the computer lab during CAD class and then watch during a long lunch break. Kazaa definitely supported using multiple sources. Then when I went to Uni there was a large campus DC++ network with internal 100 MBit downloads.

drewblaisdell 12y ago

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think post-Napster clients like DC++ made it possible to resume a download from a different source, or pull the same file from multiple sources, by comparing checksums. This made downloading popular files quite a bit faster, and eliminated most of the issues with p2p networks like Napster—it was just much less convenient because you had to search for the peers yourself.

marrs 12y ago
Yeah, I think Kazaa and eMule did this as well.

vkjv 12y ago

Also, clumsy as it may have been, the practice of splitting large files into volumes of small RAR files helped.

josefresco 12y ago
I remember the agony of having downloaded 50+ separate RAR files via dial-up and having one or several of the RAR files corrupted or missing.
- mlrtime 12y ago
  and that is why we now have sfv and par2