New version of BitTorrent heralds a new age of uncongested file sharing

What you probably didn't know is that BitTorrent Inc., the company created by the technology's inventor Bram Cohen, spends most of its time extolling the virtues of its tech and campaigning all over the world for the relaxing of P2P restrictions by ISPs. The thing is, while BitTorrent really, really rocks for its users, it tends to clog up networks really quickly. It also costs the ISP -- such as Verizon or Comcast -- a lot more than 'normal' Internet usage.
But it's this disparity between what the ISPs consider to be 'normal' Internet usage and what we the users consider 'normal' that has driven the development of 'BitTorrent 2.0' or uTP. (uTorrent Protocol? I'm not sure.) BitTorrent Inc. firmly believes that P2P is part of our every-day Internet lives. It is our right to download and distribute files via BitTorrent.
And if ISPs won't let us, insisting on limitations and traffic-shaping the bandwidth that we use, then they're going to develop a new protocol that meets them at least half way. uTP now automatically limits its own bandwidth use when it detects congestion on the network -- uTP limits itself so that the ISP doesn't have to.
Genius, pure, simple genius -- if it works. It's already being tested by thousands of users of the new version of uTorrent 2.0 -- which you should probably go and download! (Direct download link is available on that page.)
[via TorrentFreak]
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
der_tuxman said 8:29AM on 11-01-2009
BitTorrent is file trading, not file sharing.
To be more precise: BT concentrates on LESS files with a HIGHER speed, which also means that all files will have a short life time and the file diversity is awful low...
eMule ftw.
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Sax25 said 8:49AM on 11-01-2009
Nobody said bittorrent is perfect, and we all know emule is hardly the perfection you claim it to be as president of the emule fan club here in all the P2P comments on DS, but whatever flaws it has - there is a reason why it is the most popular and most accessible. Emule is never going to get the market share and support that you in your wildest dreams would ever hope for. Its 15 minutes have passed.
You're like one of these fanboys who cannot wait to show how rubbish the current tech is compared to your dated emule nonsense. Please take your eMule preaching and go elsewhere - nobody wants your trolling.
Bittorrent > emule
der_tuxman said 8:51AM on 11-01-2009
eMule still has a wider audience than Bittorrent, even if you BT fanboy don't want to understand this. Come on...
Sebastian Anthony said 8:57AM on 11-01-2009
Hm... and here I was thinking today was all about getting things NOW... not the ancient episode of Only Fools and Horses that you need to finish your collection.
There's a space for Mule, certainly... but to claim it is bigger or uses more traffic than BitTorrent... that's crazy :)
Do you have a graph to support that? The last one I saw was when Kazaa ruled the roost.
der_tuxman said 9:02AM on 11-01-2009
In Europe, eMule is still #1 according to the Wikipedia ;-), and it is still the most downloaded P2P application on SourceForge.net.
Sebastian Anthony said 12:21PM on 11-01-2009
What is your source?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_sharing_applications -- scroll down.
The numbers there suggest BitTorrent is a much more popular protocol -- and those numbers are out of date.
I don't think eMule would have grown in comparison to BitTorrent, with connection sizes increasing rather than shrinking...
der_tuxman said 12:25PM on 11-01-2009
I don't trust statistics. These contributing to them are only a small amount of people. The only thing I know is that Bittorrent is known for short file life times while eMule is known for its file diversity. I don't have a trusty source for it. But you don't have one for the opposite either, right?
That connections are increasing doesn't mean that eMule loses users. I think the general number of P2P users is decreasing, however that's not related to eMule only.
Sebastian Anthony said 12:31PM on 11-01-2009
Hm, you started it with all the 'BT Fanboy' stuff.
I am fairly certain that I've seen graphs that show the comparative overall network use of eMule/Limewire/BT, etc. And BT blew the rest out of the water.
Sure, it doesn't cater for every need, but you can see from its current uses that it has a LOT of applicability.
Steam, Blizzard Downloader, open-source ISO distribution -- and then all of the nefarious purposes. What do people use eMule for, except old TV shows/music?
der_tuxman said 12:44PM on 11-01-2009
For the same stuff like BT. Creative Commons music, software distribution... contentdb.emule-project.net
shibathedog said 8:43PM on 11-01-2009
Usenet Bitches.
Sebastian Anthony said 8:45PM on 11-01-2009
That has even less retention than BitTorrent... but sure, it has its uses!
tracdoor said 9:23AM on 11-01-2009
So we're still being limited?
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Sebastian Anthony said 12:15PM on 11-01-2009
Well, users are reporting no apparent slow-down from using the new client -- so it would seem both the user and the ISP win -- which is always a good thing, if we want to keep unrestricted and unshaped bandwidth :)
cubanresourceful said 10:03AM on 11-01-2009
How long would it take to ship a NHL Jersey Woman?
minibar said 12:15PM on 11-01-2009
"It also costs the ISP -- such as Verizon or Comcast -- a lot more than 'normal' Internet usage."
1.) How much is "a lot more than normal"?
2.) In what areas do big ISPs incur these costs?
If you're talking bandwidth, I've seen reports that the costs are not that much more because the heaviest torrenters tend to run late at night when there is bandwidth to spare--admittedly, there is some congestion during the day and evenings and this certainly costs something, but not "a lot more than normal." If you're talking ISP hardware, see above. If you're talking support, I doubt torrenters require much support from ISPs. I've also read the fact that FiOS up/down rates have become "flatter" (by which I mean the up rate is closer to the down rate in terms of %) suggests that ISPs have accepted torrenters as legitimate, and legitimate use is what underlies the bandwidth issue. Further, while Comcast has throttled torrenters, Verizon has taken a much more hands off policy with torrenters, so even with your own ISPs the record is mixed in terms of how ISPs view torrenters. I know there are experimental bandwith caps in a few markets I think with Time-Warner, but even there the caps are high enough so as to not affect over 99% of torrenters.
Maybe your statement is justified, but I haven't seen any solid evidence for it, so you need to back it up if it's going to have carry any weight.
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Sebastian Anthony said 12:19PM on 11-01-2009
Well, I'm talking purely from the ISP point of view there. You could argue that the networks had to be upgraded anyway.
Imagine what kind of network infrastructure existed pre-BitTorrent -- they would base their backbone size on average usage. That's the only way to do business -- you can't just whack in a 20Gbit backbone if your average utilisation is 3Gbit/s. Then BitTorrent comes along and... well... it has to be upgraded.
On the Internet, you pay for your uploaded bandwidth. When you download a file from a remote server, that remote server's owner pays the bill. When someone downloads something from your computer, your ISP pays for that connection.
But whether it is actual price-per-gigabyte or just pay-to-put-the-network there, I don't know. I just know that we should be very grateful to the private investors that have put the international network in place :)
phez said 1:04AM on 11-02-2009
"More" bandwidth is the result of all the extra overhead required for the hundreds of connections, as well as redownloading bad parts of torrents.
Jeebus said 9:26AM on 11-03-2009
Sounds like TCP
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