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Send Any File Of Any Size With A ‘Friend-to-Friend’ File Transfer Using zeZebra

Saikat Basu — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 18:00:48 +0000

Cloud options like Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive and the rest of the herd have made file storage and transfers rather easy. You upload something to your cloud account and then share the link with anyone so that they can download the file at their end. But there’s a catch.

Your files are stored somewhere and for whatever it is worth, nothing in the digital world is a Fort Knox. Also, cloud services like Dropbox have space restrictions. For instance, Dropbox caps it at 2 GB for a free account. Then comes the hurdle of upload restrictions. While the Dropbox desktop client lets you add large files, the web interface has a 300 MB limit. Hurdles everywhere and nowhere to go.

Oh! You can take the left ahead and go to zeZebra. The world always needs a simple file sharing solution without limits. The zebra answers the call.

zeZebra Rides To the Rescue

zeZebra is a peer-to-peer file transfer freeware that enables you to transfer any file type (documents, photographs, videos, etc.) of any size to anyone. But the appeal of the tool lies in its simplicity behind the nice looking interface, and the fact that it sets up a secure channel between two parties or more interested in a file transfer.

zeZebra says that it maintains encryption so that the transfer of files is completely secure. What helps of course is that the file you are transferring across the internet does not go through any server. So, it is not stored anywhere and it’s a ‘closed circle’ between the sender and the recipient. zeZebra does not even know the contents of the file that’s being transferred.

zeZebra is a 7.54MB download for Windows and Mac.

Running the zeZebra

What’s your first take on the interface? Elegant? Simple and striking? Well, if it’s any of that then it is a good start and things can only get better as we run with our first file transfer. The simplicity of the interface brings the intuitiveness in handling the software as you really don’t need to go through intricate set-up steps. You only need to enter your name and email address to access the main interface when you run the application for the first time. Your name and email address also identifies you to the person to whom you will send the file.

To start a file transfer, you simply click the large blue Share Files button, browse to the location of the file, select it to begin the file transfer. This message pops up:

Instead of copy-pasting the share link from the clipboard, you can use the share options from the application itself. Check the screen below:

The default mail client for sending the shared link is Microsoft Outlook. zeZebra installs a plug-in for Outlook. But then of course, you can use Gmail or Facebook also to share the link. I am using Gmail and my automatically composed message looks like the one below. I just have to enter the email address of the recipient.

The neat part is that the recipient does not need to have the client installed immediately. You will notice that the shared link has an identifier number that links each user to the file transfer process. The recipient receives the link and zeZebra tells them that they need to download and install the zeZebra application to complete the ‘closed circle’ for the transfer to begin. Once the recipient has installed zeZebra, it will automatically detect the link and start the file transfer.

Both users need to be online at the same time to complete the transfer. But if the transfer is interrupted due to some reason, it can be resumed again (provided both parties are online). The screenshot below could have looked better if I had a few more users to try out a file transfer with…

A Few Settings to Consider

zeZebra is uncomplicated, But still there are a few settings you can check out. From the Plugins panel, you can enable and disable the Outlook and Picasa plugins. Both the plugins can useful especially if you want to send a large file or let’s saw a large high-resolution image from either of the programs. The Traffic panel controls the transfer speed mode and the number of simultaneous transfers to allow.

Profile and Contacts are pretty much self-explanatory.

Size Really Does Not Matter

zeZebra is from the same tribe that includes other ‘friend to friend’ P2P tools like Alliance P2P, Waste, and TudZu. There are just two things which are lagging right now – a more detailed explanation on the security of the connection and perhaps a chat program to enable real-time conversation between the parties involved in the transfer.

But to reiterate the value of the program, I will quote from the software’s webpage itself – No excuses, no spam, no complications, no fee. It’s free, really free.

It really is. That’s why you should try it out at least once with a large file transfer. Then come back and tell us in the comments if zeZebra deserves a place on the high table of our Best Windows Software.

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How P2P (Peer to Peer) File Sharing Works

James Bruce — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 18:00:57 +0000

There has always been a dark side to the Internet, and from the earliest days piracy was rampant. It began with message boards even before the traditional “internet” as we know it was even born, progressing to warez sites and private FTPs hosted on home computers. Finding pirate software and files used to be a slow and arduous task; it was more common to get the music or software from a friend as a physical copy (a so-called the “sneakernet”). P2P filesharing technology changed all that – but what does “peer to peer” even mean, and where did it all start?

Of course, peer to peer file sharing technology isn’t only used for piracy, but let’s be honest here: that’s the predominant usage, and that’s certainly where its roots began. There’s no need to flame off in the comments saying there are legitimate uses for it too; we know, but we’re not going to dress up the truth. Today we’ll be talking mostly about the filesharing aspect, but this certainly isn’t the only use case.

Client/Server

It’ll help to give some context on what “peer to peer” isn’t, first. The internet is traditionally what’s known as a client-server environment. Web services sit on a powerful server somewhere remote, and your computer, the client, requests information from it.

A single server can host files for hundreds of simultaneous clients, but scaling is difficult for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there’s the physical hardware requirements. This isn’t such an issue when you’re just hosting files, but if computation is required – such as when you’re hosting a dynamic website like MakeUseOf – then the CPU must work to customize those pages to individual users. Massive amounts of memory are needed, and these have a physical limit ultimately meaning more servers must be brought in to cope with demand.

Secondly, each client takes up a small slice of the connection; as a theoretical example, if the server has a 100mb/second connection, then 100 simultaneous users will only get 1mb/second maximum, each. Scale that to a 1000 users and the speed drops ten fold to 100k/second. So the more users you have, the less speed each of them are able to utilize.

Data transfer is another concern. A single 1mb file requested by 1000 people will mean you’ve used a 1gb of data transfer. When you pay per gigabyte, that can really add up; bear in mind that a single HD movie can often be around 4gb in size. Pushing huge files out to thousands of users is an expensive business.

So what is peer to peer?

Peer to peer is a different model, in which everyone becomes a server. The server role is distributed to users; instead of simply taking files, peer to peer makes it a two way street – you could now give back. In fact, giving back (known as “seeding” nowadays) is critical to the success of peer to peer networks (which is exactly why downloading without seeding – or leeching – is looked down upon as a cardinal sin in filesharing circles).

Unlike the client-server model in which performance degrades with more users; the peer to peer model actually works more effectively with more users in the network. The more users that make a particular file available from their hard drives, the easier it is for new users to acquire that file.

In some p2p networks, it’s faster once a certain threshold is reached; instead of taking the whole file from one user, you’re taking a smaller piece of the total file from hundreds of other users – combining connections to use your own at maximum efficiency. It should be noted that not all p2p software work this way though: BitTorrent was one of the first to aggregate connections in order to speed up the download by taking just a small part of the file from many different places simlutaneously.

Initially with p2p networks, some form of central server was needed to organize the network – to act act a database that holds information on currently connected users, files available in the system etc. Though the heavy lifting of file transfers was done directly between users, the networks were vulnerable since knocking out that central server meant disabling communications completely. This is no longer the case with recent developments; you can ask peers directly if they’ve seen a particular file. There is no way to knock out these networks; they are effectively indestructible.

History

Now you have an idea of why Peer to Peer networks were such a revolution compared to the Client/Server model, let’s take a quick look at the historical context.

Napster was the first widely available implementation of a peer to peer model in 1999. A central database held information about all the music files held by members; when you searched for a song to download, you would actually be connecting to another online user and downloading from them. In turn, once you had that song in your Naptster library, it would be available as a “source” for others on the network. You could also just add your own files, which would then be indexed and added to the database, ready to propogate across the world. The implementation was limited in that you could only download from one person though – though there was a high availability of songs, speeds were not so great.

Napster was eventually shut down in 2001, but not before similar networks had arisen that offered more than just music: movies, software, and images would now also be made available on Morpheus, Kazaa, and Gnutella networks (Limewire is probably the most famous Gnutella client).

Over the years, various protocols and peer to peer file sharing software came and went, but one open protocol has really taken hold: BitTorrent.

BitTorrent

Designed in 2001, BitTorrent is an open protocol whereby users would create a “descriptor” file (a .torrent file) containing information about the download, but not the actual download. A tracker is needed to store these descriptors, along with who currently holds that file, but it is an open protocol in the sense that anyone can make a client and anyone can host a tracker. Yes, even though it needed a central tracker, multiple trackers could exist, and any single torrent descriptor file could be registered with multiple trackers – meaning the network was incredibly robust. Knocking out one tracker wouldn’t neccessarily make a file unavialable, and another tracker can simply pop up to take it’s place.

Since then, incredible advances have been made that essentially remove the need for a central tracker. DHT – a distrubuted hash table – is one such technology that’s been implemented by BitTorrent, enabling the job of indexing files to be also be distributed amount all the users. Magnet links are another – Tim wrote all about these before, so be sure to read that for an in-depth overview of how magnets differ from traditional .torrent files.

Finding content in the first place is still a work in progress; if you have the hash ID, you can find peers with the files available – but what if you don’t have the hash yet? Clients such as Tribler have attempted to solve this, but it’s mostly client independant and not a part of the core BitTorrent protocol, so there’s certainly still room for improvement in this respect.

I hope this has shed some light on the meaning of peer to peer and where it began. I think it’s fair to say p2p software changed the internet and our lives forever; it is estimated that p2p software is responsible for between 40–70% of all internet traffic. The primary usage remains piracy, but there’s no reason media outlets shouldn’t embrace the protocol. The linux movement advocates using torrents to distribute large ISO images of the various OS flavours, thereby avoiding heavy hosting costs.

Did you get a chance to use Napster back in the day? Or was your first introduction to filesharing through the humble torrent? Tell us – where did your first mp3 come from?

Image Credits: ShutterStock – client server , ShutterStock – peer to peer vector

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How To Jam With Your Band Online

Angela Alcorn — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 20:00:29 +0000

If you’re musical and you’ve ever been a part of a Google hangout or group Skype chat before, you’ve probably at least once thought “Hey, we could use this with our band!” hoping that you’d not have to battle traffic for your next rehearsal. And while the technology is pretty awesome for regular chatting, in reality it kind of sucks for music. This is because of unavoidable lag.

However, if jamming online is what you’re hoping to do then don’t despair. There are still a number of options you can try out – and they don’t cost the earth! Musicians tend to be rather a smart bunch, and there are some geeky musos who have been working hard on a solution to online jamming for some time. Lucky for you, this means all you have to do is have a go!

You Will Need Fast Internet

Before we get into the options, it should be noted that all services listed here will require broadband internet with decent bandwidth. No matter how you plan to do your online jamming, a crappy internet connection will ruin everything.

eJamming AUDiiO [Paid Solution]

The eJamming software is a little out of the price range for most amateur musicians, but I’ll mention it here anyway because it might be useful for semi-professionals and professionals. It really is good at what it does, such as allowing you to connect up to four locations together and record up to 16 audio tracks at once. There’s a free 30-day trial, but after your trial expires it will cost you $9.95 per month.

MusicianLink and JamLink Hardware [Paid Solution]

JamLink is a hardware solution to the online jamming problem, meaning that you and your friends buy a special JamLink box and use it to connect to each other for a session. They cost a bit upfront, but once you have the hardware you have no more costs to pay to use them (well, other than your regular internet and household bills). Sadly, everyone playing needs to have a JamLink box – even just to listen in.

Ninjam [Free Solution]

Ninjam is a multi-platform free way to start online jamming. It works beautifully and is really easy to set up. It allows users to set levels for everything they hear and to record every track. It does however have a few things that are worth noting.

Firstly, Ninjam hasn’t eradicated the lag problem. Rather, they’ve worked out a way to make it more workable by delaying people in measures. This means that unless you’re an organ player you’re going to find the deliberate-sounding lag a little weird. But, if you’re keen for a little improvisation it can be really cool.

There are many public servers for NinJam, some of which will be nearby (and possibly not very active), while finding more active servers will involve checking the forums. It is also quite easy to set up your own Ninjam server for yourself and your friends.

The last point of note is that Ninjam requires you to use a Creative Commons Share-Alike license for the tracks produced even if you run your own Ninjam server. This makes sense, when you think about it, as the software is under this licence and it makes it legal for all participants to record and use the recordings. While this is fine for random jamming, you might not want to use this with your band (unless you’re willing to share your work this way).

Online Jam Sessions [Free Jam]

Online Jam Sessions is a little bit different, in that it is more like a music-focused user-driven radio. Anyone can listen to the radio station or join in at any time, meaning that a form of democracy has come about where people schedule certain slots for certain kinds of jam sessions.

Llcon [Free Solution]

Llcon is similar to Ninjam in that each participant uses client software and connects to a mutual server to jam. Users can host their own server in order to get privacy for their band.

Delays are minimised wherever possible and a light will show you whether the delay between you and other band members is small enough to jam effectively or not. Users can label their instrument for the convenience of everyone and all players can adjust the levels of the others as they see fit.

Soundjack [Free Solution]

Soundjack is a slightly different solution again, allowing both a server-client connection as well as peer-to-peer connections nominally for use within a LAN. The lag is eliminated as best as possible and you are able to communicate via text chat while you jam.

Which One To Use?

In order to compare and contrast the available services, your needs must be considered. If you’re an amateur band wanting to jam with your friends, Llcon and SoundJack are your best options. If you have some money available for this, you might consider using eJamming or JamLink. If you just want to mess around with online musicians from around the world, try Ninjam or Online Jam Sessions.

Which of these will you be trying?

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Use Sopcast To Get Real-Time Streaming With TV Maxe [Linux]

Justin Pot — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:01:55 +0000

Play Sopcast streams on your Linux computer, easily. With a built-in playlist including several big TV networks and support for Sopcast and other video streaming services, TV Maxe provides Linux with a better sopcasting experience than the official Windows client.

Sopcast, in case you didn’t know, is a peer-to-peer (p2p) system for live streaming. This means that, unlike traditional p2p systems such as bittorrent, Sopcast is made to help anyone broadcast in real time. Think of it as a p2p version of Justin.tv or LiveLeak, or simply as a great way to watch sports not broadcast in your country. Read more about Sopcast here, if you’re interested.

Sopcast offers a command line and a GUI client for Linux users, but neither match the simplicity of TV Maxe. With a single, customizable channel list and support for sopcast streams along with mms, rmtp and http streams, TV Maxe just might become your go-to program for watching live content on Linux.

Using TV Maxe

The first time you start TV Maxe, you’ll see a variety of channels. Some of these are from Romania, the native country of the program, while others are international. Be warned, some of these are of questionable legality, so proceed with caution.

To play a stream, simply double-click it. Assuming there are no problems with the channel it will start playing.

Double-click the video to enter full-screen mode. or just watch in a window. As you can tell, the actual playing of media isn’t terribly difficult. The fun of this program is adding custom streams.

More Channels

Do you know of an online stream you’d like to add to TV Maxe? Doing so is easy, provided that stream is a sop, mms, rmtp or http streams. Just find the URL of your channel and add it to TV Maxe:

Find and add your favorite channels and you’ll have a running TV replacement in no time.

Alternatively, you can add and remove full sets of channels from other users. Just head to the TV Maxe list of channel lists, then head to your subscriptions in the TV Maxe settings:

This is an easy way to find a collection of channels from your part of the world.

Install TV Maxe

Ready to install TV Maxe? You’ll find the source code and RPM packages at the TV Maxe download page on Google Code.

Alternatively, if you’re an Ubuntu user like myself, you can add a PPA. Just use these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:venerix/blug

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install tv-maxe

The PPA supports Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04; people using older versions should upgrade if they want to use the latest software. Sorry about that.

FAQ

Q. I can’t install this on my extremely obscure Linux distro. Can you provide detailed instructions?

A. Sorry; I can’t. I wish I could, but I mostly use Ubuntu. Check out the forums for your distro, as you’ll find help there from people much more intelligent than myself.

Q. Is this legal?

A. Sopcast itself is perfectly legal. Some of the streams you can use it to watch are not, including some of the streams offered by default by TV Maxe. We don’t condone piracy, so only use this to watch legal content.

Q. Where can I find other Sopcast streams?

A. There are many lists online, and they are constantly moving around. I’d suggest using Google, because any list I provide here will only be outdated later.

Q. Oh man, I really want to leave a comment. Can I leave a comment?

A. You sure can! The form is below.

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What’s Up With eMule These Days? Is The File Sharing Network Slowly Becoming Obsolete?

Chris Hoffman — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:01:37 +0000

Believe it or not, eMule is still alive and kicking. These days, file sharing is all about BitTorrent and file-hosting websites like RapidShare and the ill-fated MegaUpload. Many of the older file-sharing applications have long-passed – LimeWire, Kazzaa, AudioGalaxy, Napster – they’re no more. But eMule is still with us. It’s a peer-to-peer file-sharing application that uses eDonkey servers and its own decentralized Kad network.

Unlike many peer-to-peer applications, eMule is an open-source project and it doesn’t come bundled with any adware or spyware. With an integrated search feature and a shared files directory, eMule represents another era of file sharing.

Popularity

It may be hard to believe – given all the attention paid to BitTorrent and other file-sharing methods – but eMule is still quite popular. When I wrote this article, eMule had received over 761,000 downloads this week and was the 10th most popular download on SourceForge.

eMule is a Windows-only program, but Mac OS X and Linux users aren’t left out. They can use aMule, which is cross-platform. aMule has a similar interface to eMule and uses some of the same code.

Fake Servers

In 2007, TorrentFreak estimated that as many as 60% of the available eDonkey servers were “fake” or “spy” servers. Fake servers have different motivations – some return results filled with malware to try and infect your system, while some monitor your eMule usage and may send it to anti-peer-to-peer companies.

Fake servers often return search results full of garbled, nonsensical, or empty files. They won’t display actual, real files – if you’re connected to a fake server, your files won’t show up in other users’ searches.

eMule’s Kad network does bypass the need for servers, helping with this problem. After eMule finds a few other Kad-supporting clients, it can connect to the Kad network. It’s sort of like DHT in torrent clients.

Like with other peer-to-peer networks, bad clients can also poison the network with fake files that appear in search results.

Lack Of Updates

eMule was last updated in April 2010 – nearly 2 years ago. While development isn’t completely stalled, future updates will likely only contain minor changes and bug fixes. uTorrent and many other BitTorrent clients release updates at a comparatively breakneck pace.

eMule lacks a few features we take for granted in modern peer-to-peer programs. It doesn’t support IPv6, which will likely be important in the future. It also doesn’t support NAT traversal – if you can’t use UPnP or forward ports manually, you’ll get a “low ID” which indicates that other clients can’t connect to you. This will reduce your download speed – uTorrent, for example, gets around this with its NAT traversal feature.

Its interface also feels a bit out-of-date and would likely be confusing to many users who are only familiar with torrent clients.

Usage

Today’s most popular file-sharing methods – both BitTorrent clients and online file-hosting sites – make you search the Web for .torrent files or links to downloads. eMule is more similar to Napster and other old school peer-to-peer applications – it includes a search tab. After connecting to a server on the Servers tab, you can search for files and start downloading them.

This approach may help you find older, rarer files that may not have torrents, but it also has some downsides. Not as many people use eMule and other eDonkey clients, so it may be hard to find some files. And if a file only has a few sources, the file may not be what it claims to be.

While eMule’s interface may feel a little outdated, it does support multiple sources. When you start downloading a file, eMule will download pieces of the file from various users that have the file, so you aren’t just downloading a file from a single user.

eMule uses a credit system. When you upload to another eMule client, that eMule client remembers you’ve uploaded to them and gives you download priority in the future. This encourages users to upload as well as download.

For more information, check out our free, full guides to file sharing, BitTorrent, and Usenet.

Do you use eMule, or do you prefer a different file-sharing application? Let us know in the comments.

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Why Some BitTorrent Users Are Spoiled Children [Opinion]

Justin Pot — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 20:31:02 +0000

Some BitTorrent users, it seems, are entitled idiots. The recent controversy about magnet links on The Pirate Bay is one example – people threatened to stop using the infamous piracy site because of the switch, which forced people to update their BitTorrent clients and not much else – but that doesn’t come close to the entitlement another recent story reveals.

Imagine this – you get all of your entertainment free of charge, courtesy of people who record it for you in their spare time and put it on the Internet. Then these people, who you’re not paying, change the format they are offering this free entertainment in. Would you, realizing that you’re getting free entertainment because of volunteers, just accept it? Or would you complain about it in the comments section of torrent sites?

At least some people opted for the second choice. That level of entitlement is shocking.

The Story So Far…

More and more torrent sites are offering TV shows and movies as MP4 files using the x246 codec instead of the dated Divx standard. Why? Because the organizations that rip these shows and release them are changing, for a variety of reasons outlined in a document called The SD x264 TV Releasing Standards 2012. Catchy name, I know.

Simply put, the groups that initially rip these files switched formats. These groups typically upload the files to Usenet; from there they generally migrate to BitTorrent sites across the web.

So BitTorrent users, because of the choice of strangers several layers removed from their favourite torrent sites, faced new formats while consuming their media. Instead of installing the new codec and moving on with their lives, however, people took to comment sections, representing the 99% of leechers against the nefarious 1% of uploaders.

Here’s a sample of the comments:

“LOL, why are all your new uploads MP4 format? How do we get hold of you? We need the AVI format back, really frustrating as most DVD players don’t play MP4 format which means we are back to converting format to AVI – how 3rd world LOL”

Yeah, what’s third world about that is the format offered, not the fact that you’re still using a DVD player to play pirated media. Hook a computer up to your TV – it’s not expensive. If your TV was made after 2005, it probably even has one of these:

Problem solved.

The next quote contains excessive all-caps, which doesn’t exactly raise the level of discourse.

“MP4 SUCKS AND IS A BULL $#!^ FORMAT. AVI WILL ALWAYS BE KING. MORE TROUBLE THAN IS WORTH. TIME TO GET MY DOWNLOADS FROM A BETTER SITE THAT OFFERS AVI AND I KNOW A MAJORITY OF THE DOWN LOADERS WILL DO THE SAME”

“SO I THINK EZTV HAS A LIMITED LIFE SPAN LEFT IF THEY DO NOT TELL DOWN LOADERS TO GO BACK TO AVI IT IS PROBABLY ALL OVER FOR THIS SITE.”

Whoever you are – you are an entitled parasite, and are the reason why the height of entertainment for future generations will be entirely cellphone videos of cats. How are media companies supposed to keep viewers happy if people like you find reasons to complain about high-quality, advertisement-free content you’ve paid nothing for?

Conclusion

If these are the customers media companies need to make happy in order to be profitable, that chance seems remote. If they find reasons to complain about free copies of expensive-to-produce television episodes how is any company supposed to make money producing TV shows?

Users on the Internet love to complain for services they pay nothing for. Ask Facebook – they’ve turned ignoring customer complaints into an art form, and they’ll likely never pay the price for that.

Behind these complaints, however, is a certain entitlement. People believe things should be given to them, for free, on their own terms. This makes sense with social networks, all of which profit by turning our friendships into commodities. If they’re doing that, they should listen to the concerns of their users.

This isn’t the case for BitTorrent, though. You’re getting something for free. Start acting like it.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for the information. A version of this story appeared in episode 13 of the Technophilia Podcast.

Image Credit: Child crying via Shutterstock

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The Best 3 Private Torrent Trackers That You Should Be Invited To

Craig Snyder — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 02:30:42 +0000

With Napster, WinMX, LimeWire, and Kazaa mostly in their graves (SoulSeek is still around, I guess), the world of filesharing has made a swift transition to torrents. Just like the good old Napster days though, public torrent sites and trackers are riddled with trojans and other garbage. The best way to enjoy your filesharing experience is getting an invite to one of the many (but few illustrious) private trackers.

While invite-only web is becoming a slight trend, I’m here to share three niche-specific and very reliable private sites that I use to get my complete media fix. Let’s get started.

PassThePopcorn

PTP has been around for quite a while, and through a legacy of staff drama and domain name changes, it still stands today as the best private torrent site for movies.

High-quality rips are added to PTP faster than almost anywhere else on the net, and speeds are generally top notch. PTP is at around 23,000 (of 25,000) users with a daily activity rate that hangs around 40%. Monthly, it’s at more than 90%. PTP is hanging right under the 100,000 total torrents mark. They’ve got over 53,000 individual movies, more than 80,000 subtitles, 533,000+ user ratings, 3.5 million total snatches, and a seeder/leecher ratio of 85.49. That’s impressive. The site is very smooth and easy to navigate, also.

As a little added bonus, PTP has some of the most active forums I’ve seen across private trackers. The community is very involved. This is where I go when I want movies. If you’re fortunate enough to be an active, invited member than you can tag along with me. My username there is Craig.

What.CD

What.CD is the premiere private tracker for music. Even their splash page is mysterious and makes you want to join up. Like PTP, What.CD has been going strong forever. The site has not changed much over the years, and that’s a good thing. It’s here to stay.

Here are the current stats that What.CD boasts:

Maximum Users: 200,000
Enabled Users: 147,441
Users active today: 31,864 (21.61%)
Users active this week: 75,651 (51.31%)
Users active this month: 120,045 (81.42%)
Torrents: 1,274,496
Releases: 588,517
Artists: 442,475
“Perfect” FLACs: 298,750
Requests: 158,012 (70.30% filled)
Snatches: 66,631,197
Peers: 8,836,049
Seeders: 8,687,317
Leechers: 148,732
Seeder/Leecher Ratio: 58.40

Those numbers are completely insane! If you’re an audiophile and love your FLACs, this is the place to be. I’ve never gone to What.CD and left without finding what I wanted. I’m CSS over at that tracker.

TvTorrents.COM

TvT is the up-and-comer of this list. It’s much different from PTP and What.CD. It doesn’t run on Project Gazelle like those two, the tracker software that What.CD made famous. The invitation and credits system is completely different also.

Again, just like the others, this is absolutely at the top of its class. Sometimes shows are uploaded as briefly as 15 minutes after their live airing. They’ve even got sections of the website that shows recently aired episodes of the most popular TV series’, complete with the matching user-contributed torrents (if there).

These guys are really doing it right, and their approach is definitely changing the way a lot of people watch “TV”. No more sitting and waiting, you don’t even have to set the TiVo. TvTorrents.com has everything you want, from Dexter to the most obscure foreign sitcoms. I’m over there too, self-named.

Now how do you get an invite to these awesome trackers? That’s on you. Just know that they are out there and hold all of your cravings and desires! In the event that you do get invited, you’ll want one of these clients to speed up your downloads. Might also want to check this article out too, it could save you some worry.

Don’t Forget: The Free A-Z Torent Guide

If you know any other quality sites, get at me in the comments. No begging for invites, either!

The post The Best 3 Private Torrent Trackers That You Should Be Invited To appeared first on MakeUseOf.

5 Different uTorrent Add-Ons You Should Try Out

Danny Stieben — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 09:31:12 +0000

Torrents have become quite an interesting invention over the last few years, even though the technology has now existed for quite a while. Back in the day, using torrents was still a little tricky, as Internet connections weren’t as fast as they are today, and torrent clients weren’t as advanced or as easy to use. Specifically, and I remember this problem very well, you’d have a tough time getting some decent download rates if you didn’t have a port specified in the settings that was actually open or forwarded to your computer, if you were behind a router. However, the clients have now matured in a way where you just need to open the .torrent file, accept the torrent into the program, and wait.

The most popular torrent client, uTorrent, has been getting a lot of extra effort put into it to simplify its use while expanding its feature set. I must say that the uTorrent developers have done an excellent job to do all of this while still keeping the program lightweight. One of the newer features that you’ll find is called add-ons.

µMap

µMap is one of my favorite addons. To me it’s always been quite interesting to see where certain peers are located. There are a couple of different ways to view these maps, and you can organize them by client type, country of origin, or swarm. This way you can easily identify any trends that may be interesting to you.

This app can also show you how closely it can identify your location as well. If µMap can find you within a smaller area than you’d like, you can try to use a free VPN service to mask your actual location.

uChat

uChat lets you chat with other people who are currently downloading the same torrent as you are. This could be a great way to kill some time while your torrent is downloading. You could also find a new online friend who shares similar interests with you, or you could learn about other torrents that you might be interested in. You’re not automatically signed into uChat when you download torrents, so you won’t be disturbed when you don’t want to be.

Skins

If you can already customize your uTorrent client with apps, why not change some visuals as well? With Skins you can easily do that! You can choose from a number of skins by simple browsing or searching via keywords. If you’re a little artsy you can even create a skin yourself.

4. Tetronimoes

So you’ve just added a new torrent to your client (such as a nice DVD collection of your favorite Linux distribution), and have nothing better to do other than to simply sit there and wait. Socializing with strangers might not be something you’d like to do either. After all, you can’t browse the web or you’ll use up bandwidth that could go to the torrent. Instead, you can go ahead and play some Tetris thanks to the Tetronimoes app. Now you can play a classic, lightweight game, and in no time at all you’ll see your torrent completely downloaded.

5. Khan Academy

As a student, I find this app to be very valuable. Khan Academy offers various different college courses whose class videos can be downloaded via torrent. This can be a great advantage to anyone who wants to catch up, get ahead, and simply learn something new that could be beneficial to their work or other activity. Don’t forget to allow some space on your hard drive for this. Khan Academy offers plenty of classes, and you should expect one class worth of videos to take around 2.5GB.

These are the top 5 apps that I personally recommend. Of course, you are never obligated to completely agree with this list, so it’s always best to browse through all the available apps in your uTorrent client. You could also check out this list of other apps. Personalization is always the best feature you can get out of a well-designed program. Also, don’t forget that uTorrent is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, so everyone can enjoy them.

Is there an app that you believe should’ve been on the top 5 list? Which app would it be and why do you think so? Let us know in the comments!

The post 5 Different uTorrent Add-Ons You Should Try Out appeared first on MakeUseOf.

guiminer – An Extensive Tool For Bitcoin Mining

Danny Stieben — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 17:30:13 +0000

As of late there’s been a been a great buzz going around about Bitcoin, the latest P2P digital currency. One of the main activities of getting Bitcoins is through a process called mining.

In order to successfully conduct Bitcoins mining, you’ll need a working “miner” that will make good use of your hardware (more about that later). There are a handful of miners out on the Web, but many of them have a narrow window of hardware it can work with, or it is difficult to (easily) control because it only runs via a command line.

No need to fear, though, because there’s a great program that comes with a GUI that does all the dirty work!

What are Bitcoins About?

Before we start, we need to understand a little better what Bitcoins are and what the mining process consists of. Bitcoins are pieces of virtual money that can be traded around just like regular money, but with extremely low transaction fees (paid in Bitcoins). Bitcoins can also be exchanged for other currencies such as the US Dollar, Euro, etc.

Their value changes based on demand, which can be tracked at Mt. Gox or BitcoinCharts. At the time of this article the BTC to USD exchange rate is $10.90/1 BTC, but this rate can change every 5 minutes. Bitcoins are created by solving a puzzle that involves getting a certain result with random hashes, which is effectively what mining is all about. Another important feature of Bitcoin is that everything is done anonymously.

More information about Bitcoin can be found in this well-written article.

Starting guiminer

guiminer is essentially a GUI interface that can control multiple different mining applications at the same time, which come bundled with the program on download. It is available for Windows, and also offers early support for Linux. If you’ve never used Bitcoin before, you must install the official Bitcoin client to have a wallet and Bitcoin address (where you can send and receive Bitcoins from). Once you’ve done that you can go ahead and launch guiminer.

Interface and Miners

The interface is pretty simple. The default miner that opens will use your GPU’s OpenCL capabilities (if it’s from AMD). Otherwise, you can choose to create a new miner. Here you can also choose “Phoenix” (a miner from a different developer), a CUDA miner (meant for nVidia cards), a CPU miner, and a custom option.

I highly recommend you choose OpenCL for AMD cards and CUDA for nVidia cards. You should probably leave the CPU miner alone because the hash rate will be very low compared to your GPU, which is capable of doing many parallel computations at the same time.

For example, my AMD Phenom II X6 1100T processor gets roughly 3.5 Mh/s (megahashes per second) while my AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics card gets on average 320 Mh/s.

Whom to Mine For

Once you have your miner selected, you can choose where to mine for. You can try doing things solo, where if you manage to land a block, you’ll get a total of 50 Bitcoins, all to yourself. That’s, at the time of this writing, about $545! However, you’ll either have to be very lucky to get a block, or you’ll either have to spend many months running 24/7 before you finally get one. You could also increase the horsepower and add multiple GPUs or even additional mining rigs to get the number of megahashes higher so that it won’t take months and months.

Another choice is to choose to enter a mining pool. Mining pools combine the efforts of all the members involved in order to get blocks a lot faster. The resulting Bitcoins then usually get split proportionately among all the involved and active contributors. It will most likely take you just as long to get 50 Bitcoins through a mining pool, but you’ll get paid after every couple hours of work you contribute instead of waiting until you get a lump sum of 50 BTC. guiminer comes with a number of preconfigured mining pools, so you can choose any of them, register beforehand, make sure you entered your Bitcoin address in your profile so you can get paid, and then start mining for that pool.

Extra AMD Graphics Card Settings

If you’re an AMD/ATI graphics card holder, you’ll want to be aware of the AMD Overdrive feature in your Catalyst Control Center software. This feature allows you to overclock as well as underclock your graphics card, to give you either more performance (and more megahashes) or more power and heat savings (and less megahashes). If you feel safe to do it, you can play around with the settings on that page, but please stay on it for a while and monitor the stats about graphics card, especially the temperature. If it starts climbing too high, you’ll either need to change your settings or manually adjust the fan speed if you can (should be on the same page).

For more information, you can check out this article.

Conclusion

Despite all it’s criticisms, Bitcoin seems to be picking up speed at a rapid pace. There are also an increasing number of online stores that accept Bitcoins as a valid way to pay, so keeping some in stock may be a good idea. However, if you have the time and resources, getting Bitcoins from almost nothing through mining is quite a reward. If you stick to it (and possible add some extra omph to your hardware), you’ll have a nice sum of money at the end.

What do you think of Bitcoin? Are you interested in or do you already do Bitcoin mining? Anything else you want to address on this matter? Let us know in the comments!

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Start Your Own Peer-To-Peer Online Educational Course For Free

Bakari Chavanu — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 23:31:15 +0000

In past articles we have shared a wealth of free online college courses, as well as courses for free download in iTunes U, hosted by popular universities around the country. But if you have the skills and dedication for sharing your knowledge and collaborating with others online, the newly revamped grassroots website, Peer 2 Peer University allows anyone to start and offer an online course on any subject.

P2PU was started two years ago by five people and has grown into a community of about 1,000 students and teachers, teaching or participating in a variety of six-week long and continuously running online classes. The goal of P2PU is to make learning and knowledge available to everyone through the use of online technology and resources. Much of the project is run by volunteers, but P2PU has also received support from the Hewlett Foundation, the Shuttleworth Foundation, and the University of Irvine.

Courses Offered

P2PU currently has over two dozen courses on subjects including PHP Programming, Introduction to Linux, Formal Reasoning in Computer Science, Microeconomics, Blogging and Writing for the Web, Mathematics on Computers, Javascript, and HTML 5.

After registering on the site, you can follow or participate in any listed course. Participants in a course are allowed to post messages and comments on the “course wall” and participate in the class activities and tasks.

P2PU also includes three ongoing schools - School of Social Innovation, School of the Mathematical Future and School of Webcraft, the last of which is a project developed in partnership with the Mozilla Foundation to teach the skills of web development and standards. Courses can also be created for these particular schools.

Create A Course

Most of the current P2PU courses are technical or skills-oriented, but the original pilot of P2PU is to allow for courses and study groups on any subject of interest, e.g., cyberpunk literature, philosophy, movie criticism, personal finance literacy, a foreign language and music theory.

To start a course, first update your membership profile and then select Dashboard > Create New Topic, under your Profile. You can create a new course from scratch, clone an existing study or import a course from the old P2PU site.

As you might expect, you will need a name and brief description of your course, and the type of class it will be, e.g. study group, seminar, workshop, or working group. In your profile you will want to state your own background and expertise for teaching the course.

Next, you will need to outline your course content, which mainly consists of a series of tasks for participants. Tasks can include an overview of the course, posted readings or links to documents, activity assignments, planned online presentations and discussions, multimedia presentations and the like. Additional information on creating a course can be learned from this video tutorial.

Finally, you will probably need to promote your course or study group on social networking sites, as well as blogging sites related to your topic. You could for example write a press release announcing the course and send it out to related media sites and bloggers. P2PU also promotes all courses on its homepage and blog.

A few P2PU courses are geared toward instructors and methods for teaching, such as the P2PU Handbook course, Collaborative Lesson Planning, and Introduction to Contributing to Lernanta, which is the open source platform that P2PU runs on.

P2PU doesn’t offer official credentials for teaching and successful completion of a course, but instructors and organizers of a course can provide certificates and other forms of acknowledgements for participation and completion of assignments.

While P2PU is still in the experimental stage, the project is the type of innovation that demonstrates how the Internet can be used to broaden educational opportunities, based on the foundations of openness, community, and peer learning.

Let us know what you think of P2PU. Have you ever participated in an online course? Share your experiences!

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

The post Start Your Own Peer-To-Peer Online Educational Course For Free appeared first on MakeUseOf.

BitCoin – Buy, Sell & Trade Using Anonymous Peer-To-Peer Currency

Tim Brookes — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:31:50 +0000

Earlier this month two prominent US politicians (Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia) wrote to US Attorney General Eric Holder to express concerns about the rise of a new online currency – BitCoin, abbreviated as BTC.

The anonymous, peer-to-peer currency has become very popular over the last few months, with websites popping up all over cyberspace enabling BitCoins to be exchanged or donated with nothing more than a unique, non-identifying public key.

What Is BitCoin?

In 2007 a supposedly Japanese programmer began working on BitCoin under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto” with the technology officially released in 2009. The currency is currently breaking new ground, and has already been heralded as one of the first working implementations of a crypto-currency.

By using cryptography (the act of hiding information) to both generate and transfer the currency, “Nakamoto” created a theoretically anonymous and self-contained economy. The idea was to cut out middlemen, denying a central authority the ability to issue currency or track transactions. Instead, these tasks are handled by the network of connected peers and no identifying information is recorded (try masking your IP for total peace of mind).

Here’s an example of how it all works – you want to send your friend (let’s call him Mark) a BitCoin. On your side, Mark’s public key is added to the coin and this is signed on your end via a personal private code. Mark now owns the BitCoin, and you’re prevented from using it again thanks to the BitCoin network, which records and verifies transactions.

Luckily none of this is done by hand, but by free software which handles your BitCoin banking. This software is available for Windows, OS X and Linux and only requires a user’s public key to make a payment. You can download a version for your operating system and learn about storing your BitCoins on the BitCoin website.

How Do I Get BitCoins?

There are a couple of ways to acquire BitCoins, with the easiest way being simply buying them. Using a BitCoin exchange like Mt. Gox or #bitcoin-otc on IRC or by finding a BitCoin trader on TradeBitCoin.com. For asking prices you can check out how the BitCoin markets are doing on BitCoin Charts.

It may also surprise you that you can generate your own BitCoins – a process known as mining. This is essentially a way of processing and verifying transactions, by generating “blocks” which are permanent records of BitCoin activity on the network (a block includes all recent transactions, a random number and the preceding block’s hash) and new BitCoins.

These blocks are then added to the “block chain” in chronological order, and once added to the chain a block is very difficult to modify (making it hard to “double spend” your BTC) as each subsequent block must also be modified.

Once a block has been created, a bounty (currently 50BTC) is awarded to the individual who created it. This bounty halves every 210,000 blocks, and it is estimated that by the year 2140 the maximum number of BitCoins – 20,999,999.9769 BTC – will have been generated. The fact that transaction “fees” can be added to BitCoin transactions means that mining can remain profitable, even when the maximum number has been reached.

If you’re thinking of mining for BTC then you’ll need the right hardware and the right software. Mining using your PC’s processor (CPU) is inefficient and likely to be removed from BitCoin altogether, according to the official wiki, so you won’t need to spend lots on a speedy quad core chip. Instead you’ll have more joy using a graphics processor (GPU) on a high-end graphics card. Why? The BitCoin wiki explains:

A CPU core can execute 4 32-bit instructions per clock (using a 128-bit SSE instruction) or 8 via AVX (256-Bit), whereas a GPU like the Radeon HD 5970 can execute 3200 32-bit instructions per clock (using its 3200 ALUs or shaders). This is a difference of 800 (or 400 in case of AVX) times more instructions per clock. As of 2011, the fastest CPUs have up to 6, 8, or 12 cores and a somewhat higher frequency clock (2000-3000 MHz vs. 725 MHz for the Radeon HD 5970), but one HD5970 is still more than five times faster than four 12-core CPUs at 2.3GHz.

You can find suitable software to become a BitCoin miner on this software page. If you have reduced grunt in your mining rig then you might want to consider pooled mining.

Silk Road, Spending & Safety

The two US Senators who initially raised the Attorney General’s attention to the BitCoin phenomena had noticed the popularity of a certain anonymous trading place called Silk Road. As BitCoins are also anonymous, they are currently Silk Road’s currency of choice for the sale and purchase of illicit drugs and other such illegal products.

The website requires Tor, a security tool which ensures visitors do not leave a trace on the website and uses BTC exclusively for all trades. It is likely that much of the negative press that has attached itself to BitCoin has come from Silk Road. The website operates both as a reputation system and as an internal escrow, though this doesn’t make it safe (all purchases are sent by snail mail, after all).

If you’d rather buy legal things with your BitCoins then check out the exhaustive list of merchants on the official BitCoin wiki. You might also want to visit weusecoins.com, which has plenty of privacy and security advice for newbies interested in BitCoin.

If you are going to invest time, money and effort into BitCoin mining or trading then beware that much like any risky financial venture the markets can crash and lose you a lot of money. This has already happened once, with the value of a single BTC falling more than 30% in a day, eventually recovering by 15%.

Physical safety is also a concern, especially if you’re intending on buying a lot of mining rigs and leaving them on 24/7. BitCoin Mining Accidents is a tongue-in-cheek website dedicated to reports of injury from around the mining world. According to the website one anonymous miner now has a touch of permanent brain damage due to his mining operation, and he warns you not to make the same mistakes.

Oh, and your electricity bill is bound to suffer too!

Conclusion

It remains to be seen whether BitCoins will be a total success, though early signs suggest that merchants are at least receptive to the new currency. The BitCoin wiki has a Myths page that runs through many misconceptions and sceptical statements, though it is naturally weighted towards the currency and thus biased. Only time will tell if BitCoin really is a viable, sustainable and usable decentralised currency.

What do you think of BitCoin? What do you think of Silk Road? Tried mining your own? Massive fad that’ll burn out? The future of online trade? Everyone’s got an opinion, and yours belongs in the comments box below this post.

Image Credits: BitCoin Miner PC

The post BitCoin – Buy, Sell & Trade Using Anonymous Peer-To-Peer Currency appeared first on MakeUseOf.

How To Find Files Online Without Having To Use P2P Software

Justin Pot — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:31:08 +0000

Find music, movies and more without the use of peer to peer (p2p) software. The downloads you want can be easily found on the web, without the need for additional software. You just need to know where to look.

For most people, Bittorrent is the definitive way to find less-than-legal files on the web. On the modern web, however, it’s not necessary to use Bittorrent or any other p2p network to find the files you want; you can find them straight from your browser. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look. This is handy, because some ISPs block all p2p software – very few block the web. Some sites are dedicated to pointing out where such files live, but you can also make use of Google to find what you need. Let’s run through your options.

Dedicated File Finders

We’ve covered a few search engines that find what Google can’t in the past, some of which are very good at finding individual files.

For example: FindFiles.net. This website searches, but not for pages; rather, it looks for files. Videos, music and pictures are among its features, but there’s more here than that:

Simply type your search term, then click the tab of the file you’re looking for. You’re going to need to browse a bit to find exactly what is you want, but it’s worth it.

Another service worth checking out is FilesTube, which allows you to search sites like Rapidshare from a simple interface.

You’ll need some patience of course, because of the famous Rapidshare timeout. Happily you can download from Rapidshare without waiting if you want to.

Just looking for a particular MP3? Check out azMP3s, a search engine for finding songs. Just type what you’re looking for it and see the results come in:

All of these sites are free, so check them out.

Using Google

If you’d rather not use a separate site, however, it might help you to know that Google can search for files as well. It’s just a matter of telling Google what you’re looking for.

Here’s the trick: in your search query, type “filetype:” followed, without a space, by the kind of file you’re looking for. For example, if you’re looking for a PDF called the Facebook Marketing Guide, you’d type “filetype:pdf facebook marketing guide” into Google:

You can use this to search for pretty much any file type. If you’re looking for music, use “filetype:mp3“; for movies, try “filetype:avi“. You get the idea, I’m sure, but you can find more information on Google’s Filetype FAQ if you need to.

Conclusion

Finding the files you want doesn’t mean using dedicated software. It means knowing which sites to search. Whether you use Google or a dedicated file search engine, you can find what you want without resorting to p2p software.

Having said that, in many cases p2p software is faster than the above methods. What do you think is better? Share your thoughts in the comments below, because we love hearing from you and learning from you.

The post How To Find Files Online Without Having To Use P2P Software appeared first on MakeUseOf.

BaShare Makes File Transfers Simple For Your Friends [Linux]

Justin Pot — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:31:55 +0000

Do you want to send a file to a friend, or receive a file from a friend, but fear his lack of tech-savvy is impossible to overcome? Linux program BaShare surmounts that difficulty by giving your friends and family two simple links to send a file to you or receive a file from you. Just fire up the program, copy a link and send it to a friend in need. Best of all: your friend doesn’t need to install any software to receive or send files.

BaShare is perfect for transferring files during instant messaging conversations. It works regardless of the software your friend is using to chat, essentially turning your computer into a simple web server. BaShare will require some knowledge of routers on your part to get working. Get everything set up, however, and you’ve got a great tool for quickly sending and receiving files from anyone with an Internet connection.

Linux users can download BaShare from LaunchPad, with an Ubuntu package for easy installation. Once they do, the fun begins!

Port Settings

Before you can use BaShare you’re going to need to properly set up your port settings. This is only relevant if you use some kind of router in your home, but these days who doesn’t? You’re going to need to log into your router’s configuration panel and find the port forwarding option. On a NetGear router, it looks like this:

The ports 65000 and 65001, as you can see, need to point toward the computer that you’ll be using BaShare from. Set this up once and you should be fine, particularly if you give your Linux computer a static internal IP.

That wasn’t so bad, was it? Feel free to ask questions in the comments below if it was.

Sending a File

With that out of the way let’s send a file. Fire up BaShare and you’ll see the main interface:

Sending a file is as simple as clicking “Select File,” then copying the “sending” link for your friends. If they click the link the download will start, and you’ll see the progress they’re making:

The link will only work, and the download will only continue, if you don’t shut down BaShare. Don’t shut the application down until you’ve confirmed your friend has the file in question!

Receiving a File

So your friend wants to send you a file, but has no idea how to? No problem. Just copy the “URL For Receiving” and give it your friend. The link leads to a website that looks like this:

All your friend needs to do is click “Choose File“, find the file in question and finally click “Send“. Once that happens, your download will pop up on your screen like this:

Make sure you save the file somewhere or your friend will see an error message and the transfer will have to start over.

I should mention that this application has two modes: one for local transfers and another for Internet transfers. By default Internet mode is enabled, but if you want to send a file to someone on the same network as you, switch to LAN mode.

Finally, notice that you can limit the upload/download rates at will. This is particularly useful if you need to reserve your bandwidth for high-priority programs, such as Skype.

Similar Services

There are plenty of programs out there that make file sharing easy. There are websites for sharing files without signing up, if you know where to look. Heck, Dropbox makes all kinds of file sharing easier. But if you want a quick way to send or receive a file I can’t think of anything better than BaShare off the top of my head. This program leaves the hard work to you, and your friends are the ones that benefit.

Feel free to try it out and let me know how you like it. Also feel free to recommend any other software for easily sharing files!

The post BaShare Makes File Transfers Simple For Your Friends [Linux] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

5 Free Browser-Based P2P File Sharing Sites With No Size Limits

Tim Lenahan — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:30:48 +0000

Having the ability to share large files is very important to a lot of people.

For instance, the other day I wanted to send a 25MB video file to a friend. Most email programs only allow for up to 10MB at a time so email was not an option. Who wants to put it on a USB drive and drive over to their friend’s house?

I wanted to be able to just send it to them. No hassles. No installing funky programs. No waiting to upload to some server in cyberspace and have them wait for it to download again. So what to do?

Let’s narrow down what the file-sending needs (or wants) are:

Free – as in no charges whatsoever
Browser-based – no installation of some program and, therefore, cross platform
Peer to peer – no waiting for uploading and downloading; just the send time
The ability to send large files – no file-size limit

When I began to search the Internet for file sharing sites, I wasn’t sure what the easiest solution would be. What I found out was that there are quite a few file-sending options, but I had criteria. We all have standards, don’t we? Check out these five choices which meet the criteria shared above.

FilesOverMiles

FilesOverMiles does what it sounds like it does: it helps you send files over miles.

Their subtitle “Browser-to-browser Filesharing” tells us that it fits our criteria. When someone sets up a file to send, a URL is created. Just share the URL and stay online for the actual sending.

JetBytes

I like the name “JetBytes” because it speaks to the speed in which peer-to-peer transferring actually affords.

This file sharing site makes it easy referring to “on-the-fly” transfers and all that. Be careful, just as in any of these peer-to-peer tools, don’t try to open the created link yourself. Doing that will only be letting you download the file back to yourself and blocking your friend from downloading it. No too smart.

PipeBytes

From the site: “Instantly send music, movies, presentations or any other files to anybody!” Thanks, for telling us what any of these peer-to-peer tools do for us. OK, I’m just kidding around.

You’ll notice that PipeBytes actually gives some sharing options. You can either send the recipient the URL or a pick-up code which they’ll enter at the home page. Easy-peasy either way.

xFiles

Oh, you have to love the name for this one. Some weird television show is creeping around in my mind now.

All sci-fi weirdness put aside, this file sharing site puts peer-to-peer into easy to understand words: “Exchange big files directly without uploading to a server.” If you are transferring peer-to-peer, the uploading and downloading all happens at once making everything quick and easy.

Dushare

Dushare is a tool not recently mentioned here on MakeUseOf. You can share a file peer-to-peer, password protect it, and even chat while the transfer takes place because who wants to pick up a phone?

Seriously though, out of all of the rest of the file sharing sites mentioned here, I think Dushare has the prettiest looking website design. Oh, and in case you are wondering what sequence things will happen in, you have some nifty icons showing you. You can’t beat that.

You’ll notice that there wasn’t much to say about each of these tools. That’s because they all pretty much do the same thing: send any sized files, directly to another person quickly, easily and for no charge. And that’s about all they do. Test them out and see which performs the best and which is the easiest to use. Then come and tell us in the comments which is best.

How do you send large files over the Internet and why do you use that method?

The post 5 Free Browser-Based P2P File Sharing Sites With No Size Limits appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Chat With Friends Securely & Privately With RetroShare IM

Ryan Dube — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:31:03 +0000

Do you use instant messengers like Skype, MSN and Yahoo IM or do you upload to online storage services so that you can easily share files with friends? Most of the communications usually involve a middle server that handles profiles, memberships and directing those communications and messages.

Of course, a third party introduces a security hole where the line of communication could get tapped into. The person doing the tapping may be a government, a private investigator, or just a hacker out to capture your private information. If you are the least bit concerned about the privacy and security of your personal chat conversations, then peer-to-peer, where each installation is its own sort of secure chat server, is the way to go.

Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve covered lots of P2P file sharing solutions, like GigaTribe and OneSwarm, which Simon reviewed. However, if you’re looking for a one-to-one, ultra-secure line of communication with your friends or colleagues using secure chat server software, then I’d like to introduce you to RetroShare.

Setting Up The RetroShare IM P2P Client

Even if you’ve never used any peer-to-peer service before, RetroShare makes the setup ridiculously simple and fast. However, the system is amazingly secure – with all communications encrypted.

When you first set up the software, you need to create a profile. This isn’t a profile that gets stored on some remote server, it’s a profile that is stored on your PC memory and identifies you to other users that you invite via email.

The process of setting up your profile is an interesting process where the software generates prime numbers to come up with a unique “GPG key”. This is a special code that identifies your computer – so even if someone steals your password, installs the software on their own computer and tries to communicate with someone pretending to be you, it’s not going to happen. All authentication with friends is a process that ensures absolute security.

Network connection types available include Firewalled, Manual Forwarded Port, or automatic (UPnP). The first two will require that you know how to tweak your router. The third “automatic” choice is easiest, but you’ll need to configure your PC virus/security software to allow RetroShare to communicate over the network.

In addition to P2P chatting, RetroShare offers a whole suite of other peer-to-peer services like file sharing, messages (like email), and even forums. For file sharing, you can configure as many shared directories on your PC as you like.

That is all there is to setting up the secure chat server and client software. It’s a three-step introduction Wizard, and then your software is running and ready to initiate connections with friends. You can start a new connection to your friend (who also needs to have the software installed) by clicking on the “Add a Friend” icon in the left menu bar.

How To Add & Authenticate New Friends

When you choose to add a friend, you’ll see a screen with an insanely long and convoluted code. This is your PGP Public Key Block. This paragraph has meaning to the software on both your end and to your friend’s install. Copy all of the text in the top field and paste it in an email to your friend. Once they install their software, they’ll also need to click on the button to add a friend and send you the block of code in their window as well.

When you receive your friend’s PGP key, copy it from the email they sent you, and paste it into the lower field on the same screen. Once both of you have gone through this authentication process, your software and your friend’s software will reach out and touch. You are now part of the same P2P authenticated network of trusted nodes.

Now that you are both authenticated, you’re ready to really have some fun and explore the features of RetroShare.

Chat, Share Files & Collaborate With RetroShare

Once you’re both authenticated, you can communicate using the many tools that RetroShare offers. Initiate a chat window and you’ll be chatting just like in Skype or Yahoo IM. The big difference – the chat communications are encrypted – and no third party servers are involved whatsoever.

File sharing is also available via the shared directories that you defined in the setup. Want to send your friends the latest video of your child’s recital? Drop it in the shared folder and your friends can download. In the example below, we’ve both shared a folder called “RetroShare”.

Other cool features of RetroShare include a messaging system, and my favorite feature is a forum area where you can organize messages into “threads” of conversation. Here, I’m using our family’s secure network to create a family forum where we can all collaborate on planning our upcoming trip.

The value of RetroShare really becomes apparent when you’re taking part in research or other activity that may be sensitive or even classified in nature. When you really want to be sure that there’s no “middleman” in the conversation, this software is an excellent solution. With authenticated contacts and encrypted communications, you can’t go wrong.

Have you ever used RetroShare for your P2P needs? What did you think? Do you know of any other similar secure P2P systems that work as well or better? Share your insight in the comments below.

Image Credit: linusb4

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