We have covered many torrent articles in the past like fastest torrent software, Best Torrent Software, How to make Torrent Speed Fast, How to Create Torrent Files and open torrent files, now just like torrents we also have P2P (peer to peer file sharing). If you want to know more about P2P file sharing, here is a helpful article for you.

How does it work?
Peer to peer, known as P2P, is basically a file transfer over the internet between two computers. It is a completely different structure from the classic client – server structure, where all the end customers download a file from one server which can easily get clogged up. On the other hand P2P creates a virtual network which is the server itself. Instead of downloading the file from one server it is split in packages and downloaded from hundreds of peer to peer file sharing users. This way is much faster compared to downloading from a single server.

Due to the fact that it doesn’t have a central brain it is fail safe, there is no server to break down. It is enough for one user who has the file to be connected to the network for everyone else to be able to download and spread it exponentially.

Legal or not?
As much as many don’t want to admit P2P file sharing networks are mainly used to share music, games, movies, software and so on that you legally would be required to buy. Let’s take as an example the famous photo editing program Photoshop. If you want to boy it will cost you about $1000 USD. Also, it can be found on many, if not every, P2P file sharing network along with clear instructions about how to activate it and bypass its anti-hacking systems. After all maybe this was the ultimate purpose it was created for.

Besides the underground there is still a legal part of P2P. Lots of open source programs, such as Open Office, can be downloaded as well as game updates, Wikipedia’s educational CD and many more. Researchers, such as those from NASA, use a peer to peer network to share data. As I told you before, the speed and the removal of the single brain server problem make P2P file sharing the ideal data transmission environment.

The downsides
Like any other technology it has its downsides. As any data sharing protocol, P2P involves certain risks. Although the chance of getting yourself an ugly virus is slimmer compared to opening a spam email you still need to be careful and have a powerful antivirus. Another thing to take great care about is the sharing of personal files. Once they get out there the process is unstoppable.

How to use P2P
P2P file sharing networks come in two ways:
-with programs like DC++ and oDC which use a inter-software network page. It’s like a chat software. You can see the users and you can see what each one shares and when you need something specific you can search for it.
-torrents. These come in the form of public or private websites which only stores a little file with the information about a file package. There you see the files, not the users.

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