Adam Back writes: > Contrary to what article [2] claims FastTrack/Kazza really does blow > Gnutella away, the supernode concept with high performance nodes > elected to be search hubs makes all the difference. Gnutella last I > tried it was barely functional for downloads, ~95% of downloads > failed, and searches were much slower.
You should try again. That article you quoted about Gnutella's problems was over a year old. The network has improved enormously in the past year. Today I would say that 70% of downloads succeed, although of course it works better for more popular files. We have restarting of failed downloads, and simultaneous downloads from multiple users. With a widely shared file I sometimes max out this DSL line at 80-90 KB/sec downloads (that's bytes not bits). One problem is that searches are still slow and it is still hard to find uncommon files. FastTrack is going to die. The spyware installed by the clients pisses users off, and the use of centralized servers is just too big a target for the infinitely deep pockets of the recording industry. Gnutella is now a very adequate replacement, which was certainly not true a year ago. In the long run, decentralized networks are the only ones which can survive.
