The Guide to Biggest File Sharing Networks: Pros & Cons

Have you ever wondered what are the biggest file sharing networks out there? Have you ever wanted to know the pros and the cons for each but didn’t know where to look? Want to know which file sharing network gives you best download speed or highest level of privacy? In that case, this short manual should be just the thing to help you out.

Here today for your viewing and educational pleasure is the MakeUseOf Guide To The Biggest File Sharing Networks. Written by Stefan Neagu of TuxGeek and put together by our very own Manuals Editor, Simon Slangen.

We look at what P2P is, the popular file sharing networks and how to use them as well as the pros and cons for each. We also look at privacy issues and share some excellent tools helping you to protect your privacy on these networks. By the end, any questions you have about file sharing networks should hopefully be answered. If not, leave a comment below and we’ll see if we can answer it for you.

Download: The MakeUseOf Guide to Biggest File Sharing Networks

If you enjoyed this release, you should also check out other available MakeUseOf manuals.

Tagged: manuals • p2p • torrent

Mark O'Neill

Mark O'Neill is the managing editor of MakeUseOf.com

twoboxen

free usenet client – hellanzb. very good.
adorno

What a joke. edonkey and gnutella are 10-year old networks. You don’t even mention any of the newer or really good ones.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

well, in that case why don’t you tell us about them. What are newer file sharing networks you’re talking about?

Charax

at least it doesn’t include that classic bit of MakeUseOf Badvice: Don’t download torrents containing compressed files

No DC++? I was under the impression that was fairly common.

http://tuxgeek.me/ Stefan Neagu

It depends on what you consider popular. 5% of the total traffic doesn’t seem that much to me.

dozo

file hosters are the new way of downloading stuff…
torrent slows ur pc down too much and downloads are slow in general.. the other networks u mention are dead.

find a nice website with links to rapidshare, megaupload, netload etc… use tools like jdownloader or cryptload and u will never click a torrent site again

http://tuxgeek.me/ Stefan Neagu

As noted in the guide – ‘file hosters’ are the new an improved way with 100% guarantee of being prosecuted.

nerd

yeah, the manual is oldschool o better history shit. sorry, but totally useless. only bullshit.
idiots trying to be investigative and only know nothin. poor guys.

http://tuxgeek.me/ Stefan Neagu

We appreciate your comment ‘nerd’, and we thank you for your extremely, extremely constructive criticism. I really wonder why do we even have comment moderation when all these amazingly well written comments go through.

ZisforZombie

I completely disagree with your assessment of Usenet for P2P uses. I have been using usenet for 8 or 9 years now and have had consistently faster download speeds than any of the other P2P networks. OK, so you pay for the premium usenet providers, but with providers like Astraweb offering unlimited downloads for $11 a month its hardly breaking the bank. Add in the fact that most if not all usenet providers now have SSL encrypted servers for the paranoid users (myself included!) and you have the fastest and most anonymous P2P network going.

If you use a program like the excellent sabnzbd+ in conjunction with nzb sites like newzbin or binsearch, its easier to find files you want and sabnzbd+ take all the hard work out of par2′ing and extracting so all you left with is the file(s) you were after sat in your download folder.

BitTorrent, eMule and the rest pale in comparison for only a little extra initial effort and a small monthly fee.

http://tuxgeek.me/ Stefan Neagu

No offence, but I’m not going to share my credit card information with a provider of (mostly) illegal services.

http://gigasize-share.blogspot.com Gigasize

This is the biggest file sharing networks .. i havent seen any new ones here..what is the use of it.