File sharing

File-sharing refers to software used to directly or indirectly transfer files from one computer to another over the Internet (or over a smaller Intranet?).

A few file-sharing utilities:

• FTP File Transfer Protocol
• Operating System File Sharing Protocols
  • NFS? Network File Sharing
  • Samba or SMB?
  • Appleshare?
• Operating System File Sharing Servers
  • Windows 2000 Server
  • Linux
  • Novell?
  • Mac OS Server
• HTTP
  • Servers
    • Apache HTTP Server
    • IIS? Microsoft Internet Information Services
  • User agents
    • Mozilla, IE, Konqueror, etc.
  • User agents
    • Mozilla
    • CuteFTP
• IRC
• Hotline?
• OpenNap protocol
  • Directory servers
    • OpenNap Server
  • User agents
    • Napster
    • Gnapster?
    • WinMX?
• Gnutella
  • BearShare
  • Gnucleus
  • Limewire
  • Gnucleus
• Freenet protocol
  • Espra?
• Audiogalaxy
• iMesh?
• Direct Connect
• FastTrack? protocol
  • Morpheus
  • KaZaA
  • giFT?
  • Grokster?
• xolox?

Anonymous, Internet file-sharing (such as GNUtella and Napster) grew in popularity with the proliferation of high speed Internet connections and the (relatively) small and high quality MP3 audio format.

As of the year 2001, the entire file-sharing community is in a state of flux, since record companies and RIAA? try to shut down as much of this as possible. Though, they are way behind, because since Napster got problems, this community has flourished and produced gazillions of different clients, though not as many different underlying protocols, much oh which are not as dependent as Napster is on a central server, making a total shutdown mush harder for these systems.