p2p

When asked to name the single most influential advance that changed the life of netizens across the globe I would call it Peer-to-Peer Technology (p2p). After introduction it became so popular and a great source for everything from e-books to photos, from music to movies. It is one of the few things in life that relieves me of the monotony by throwing in great surprises. I was able to make a virtual home theater out of the ordinary PC sans the TV tuner card, Speakers and a Cable connection thanks to the p2p sharing. From sharing music at Napster, p2p has evolved over the years into sharing everything under the sun. p2p is no longer just one-to-one connection but rather a one-to-many connection, courtesy the bit torrents that have perpetrated the internet. From a meager download speed of about 2 Kbps during the "Kazaa" days we are right now enjoying download speeds of upto 100 KBps with clients like Bit Comet. I have observed that is no ceiling on the top speeds that can be attained for both download and upload. When no holds are barred I have seen a simultaneous download and upload happening at an incredible 2400 KBps (This happened when a guy was downloading a movie and it stopped at 61% (He became a peer - No seeds were online at that point). One more guy in the vicinity downloaded the torrent and started the download. Since there was only 1 peer and this guy was the second and since both of them haven't specified any limits incredible speeds were possible. The second peer got the entire 61% in just under 5mins.) First was Kazaa, then we had others like Limewire and E-mule. Then came the age of bit torrents with clients like Azureus. Now this is the era of Bit comet. Lightning fast and light on the system resources. Over the last one and half years I have accumulated a collection of DVD rips of about 100 movies and counting. Since I don't have a chance of catching up with TV, I have made it a habit of downloading all those movies/ TV series that I missed out from being away from home.