I did a client called Gnucleus back in the day, the original website is still up at https://gnucleus.org/ I also designed GWebCache with a friend in college. I think in the end the cost/benefit of the Gnutella architecture wasn't there. Especially in privacy - too much of a liability exposing your machine to serve files and route traffic. Also the efficiency of search over the Gnutella architecture - your query never hit all the peers.
BitTorrent was designed with the good parts like decentralized file transfer, and ditched the decentralized search - simplified with a centralized website/tracker model that can also be members only. That helped people stay more under the radar, as well as allow people to jump on/off to get what they want.
Ultimately the better balance which is why BitTorrent is still going strong today, but there is some nostalgia for the craziness of a single global network. Where people can freely share all their stuff, and downloading/opening files was like rolling the dice.
I would read a follow-up about LimeWire's dynamic query routing. I enjoyed the writing style very much and now I'm reading Rick's other articles on topics that normally wouldn't interest me. Thanks Rick!
I don’t think that’s a hot take, BitTorrent learned from Gnutella and made a better protocol. Gnutella is important historically, but it had a lot of downsides as a protocol that BitTorrent improved on.
Are you asking if lime wire used Gnutella Web Cache for bootstrapping? I’m not sure. GWebCache is one of many possible ways to boot strap, and I have not run lime wire in over a decade. I saw that GTKGnutella moved off of GWebCache sometime ago and uses some sort UDP based tool now. I am fairly certain that Shareaza still uses it because I see those results come up in my Web cache pull from time to time. I have seen a few advertisements from lime wire fork projects as well.
If I recall, proprietary clients usually shipped with their own bootstrap server. I think it may have even contributed to the legal cases, but it's been a long time.
Back in the day as a teenager. Downloaded mp3 that was labelled with title and artist and .mp3 extension. It wasn't. What it was caused me to wipe my hard drive and reinstall everything. Fkuc that shit. Apart from that, many good stuff was had.
Isn't it just great how a decision made by some genius in Microsoft decades ago caused so much confusion and mess. Even on Windows 11 the default is to hide extensions, because, geez, wouldn't want to confuse people with change after decades of it being like that.
Although, was the hiding something that the Mac introduced?
The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launched to handle the file is odd anyway...
I wonder if the Windows spyware infrastructure measures what % of people turn off extension hiding..
The mac started out without using extensions at all, the type was embedded in the metadata. That's still possible now, but it's largely derived from extensions first. I believe Finder shows all extensions by default. It certainly does in details mode.
Great memories of limewire but unfortunately its creator has gone full MAGA/MAHA, dropped all scientific knowledge he ever had by funding RFK Jr. and is even advocating cancelling child vaccination schedules.
I did a client called Gnucleus back in the day, the original website is still up at https://gnucleus.org/ I also designed GWebCache with a friend in college. I think in the end the cost/benefit of the Gnutella architecture wasn't there. Especially in privacy - too much of a liability exposing your machine to serve files and route traffic. Also the efficiency of search over the Gnutella architecture - your query never hit all the peers.
BitTorrent was designed with the good parts like decentralized file transfer, and ditched the decentralized search - simplified with a centralized website/tracker model that can also be members only. That helped people stay more under the radar, as well as allow people to jump on/off to get what they want.
Ultimately the better balance which is why BitTorrent is still going strong today, but there is some nostalgia for the craziness of a single global network. Where people can freely share all their stuff, and downloading/opening files was like rolling the dice.
I would read a follow-up about LimeWire's dynamic query routing. I enjoyed the writing style very much and now I'm reading Rick's other articles on topics that normally wouldn't interest me. Thanks Rick!
I’m glad you liked it! I hope to publish the follow up soon
Thank you for reminding me about this. Next to soulseek I'm going to use it to not obey!
Hot take: the simple reason Gnutella declined is that it was replaced by Bittorrent.
I don’t think that’s a hot take, BitTorrent learned from Gnutella and made a better protocol. Gnutella is important historically, but it had a lot of downsides as a protocol that BitTorrent improved on.
That’s what Limewire used? It definitely came pre-bootstrapped then.
Are you asking if lime wire used Gnutella Web Cache for bootstrapping? I’m not sure. GWebCache is one of many possible ways to boot strap, and I have not run lime wire in over a decade. I saw that GTKGnutella moved off of GWebCache sometime ago and uses some sort UDP based tool now. I am fairly certain that Shareaza still uses it because I see those results come up in my Web cache pull from time to time. I have seen a few advertisements from lime wire fork projects as well.
If I recall, proprietary clients usually shipped with their own bootstrap server. I think it may have even contributed to the legal cases, but it's been a long time.
just reading gnutella triggered a really old memory of times when Ares, Limewire and eMule where places to try your luck getting mp3s and software
Back in the day as a teenager. Downloaded mp3 that was labelled with title and artist and .mp3 extension. It wasn't. What it was caused me to wipe my hard drive and reinstall everything. Fkuc that shit. Apart from that, many good stuff was had.
or was it Windows hiding file extensions by default and you downloaded a .mp3.exe file?
Isn't it just great how a decision made by some genius in Microsoft decades ago caused so much confusion and mess. Even on Windows 11 the default is to hide extensions, because, geez, wouldn't want to confuse people with change after decades of it being like that.
Although, was the hiding something that the Mac introduced?
The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launched to handle the file is odd anyway...
I wonder if the Windows spyware infrastructure measures what % of people turn off extension hiding..
The mac started out without using extensions at all, the type was embedded in the metadata. That's still possible now, but it's largely derived from extensions first. I believe Finder shows all extensions by default. It certainly does in details mode.
Macs originally didn’t have filename extensions because the file type was stored as metadata in the file system
Shareaza was the goat. It had 4 or 5 protocols.
It is still around! I see network traffic from it on major GWebCache instances.
Docuwiki (not to be confused with DokuWiki) is still the most thorough source I've seen for niche documentaries.
https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Category:Name
It is all ed2k links. Unfortunately modern clients for ed2k are quite lacking
Great memories of limewire but unfortunately its creator has gone full MAGA/MAHA, dropped all scientific knowledge he ever had by funding RFK Jr. and is even advocating cancelling child vaccination schedules.