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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 th

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.
        redblacktree 12y ago
        Indeed. In many cases, it would have been faster to drive across town and borrow the disk than to wait on a download. In my experience, with my 14.4k modem, downloading a 1 MB file took about an hour. If you're talking about long-distance BBS connections, unless you knew how to make free long-distance phone calls, it would be generally cheaper to buy the damn thing.
        digi_owl 12y ago
        Sneakernet, a classic. I ran into a story about a guy in the UK that ended up involved in the piracy scene surrounding that platform. The basic story was that in the UK there were a number of Amiga centric magazines printed. And in the back of them were several pages of classified ads. Amongst them were people offering to swap disks for disks via mail. You sent them a stack of disks and a list of what you wanted, and they would send you back what they had on that list. So he put up a small ad, and got a few small envelopes. Over time this snowballed into him investing in multiple add-on drives and dedicating whole weekends to copying disks.
- 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.

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.
      - redblacktree 12y ago
        Indeed. In many cases, it would have been faster to drive across town and borrow the disk than to wait on a download. In my experience, with my 14.4k modem, downloading a 1 MB file took about an hour. If you're talking about long-distance BBS connections, unless you knew how to make free long-distance phone calls, it would be generally cheaper to buy the damn thing.
      - digi_owl 12y ago
        Sneakernet, a classic. I ran into a story about a guy in the UK that ended up involved in the piracy scene surrounding that platform. The basic story was that in the UK there were a number of Amiga centric magazines printed. And in the back of them were several pages of classified ads. Amongst them were people offering to swap disks for disks via mail. You sent them a stack of disks and a list of what you wanted, and they would send you back what they had on that list. So he put up a small ad, and got a few small envelopes. Over time this snowballed into him investing in multiple add-on drives and dedicating whole weekends to copying disks.
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.