14 DAY TRIAL // Teacher: "Tell me, Jonathan, what do you like to do when you're connected to the web?" Student:"Well, I visit websites, I chat with my friends through Yahoo Messenger, I check my email and I download games and movies." Teacher: "Games and movies? How do you manage to download such large files?" Student: "It's simple, Teach! Just use a P2P file sharing application!" This is how a conversation between two Internet users, teacher and student, would go. Most Internet consumers choose to download files from the web using peer-to-peer technologies. I'm not the one who says it, the recent researchers support it.
According to a study conducted by Ipoque, P2P downloading is one of the most popular activities on the Internet.
"Its average share varies between 49 percent in the Middle East and 84 percent in Eastern Europe. At nighttime, P2P raises up to 95 percent. Every fifth Internet user also uses file sharing. BitTorrent is the most popular P2P protocol. Only in Southern Europe, eDonkey still dominates," it is mentioned in the report.
"The P2P content analysis revealed little changes compared to last year's study. Videos make up the largest proportion. The most popular titles are current movies, pornography and music. Remarkable high is the share of eBooks in the Middle East and computer games in Southern Europe."
Sure, we can always start a long, long discussion on the piracy concerns raised by these technologies, as the authorities shut down many P2P applications after the users connected to them to download pirated movies or games. Just look at the BitTorrent protocol. Numerous BitTorrent websites were sent to the judge after the authorities discovered that they enhanced the distribution of illegal material.
TorrentSpy is the most relevant example when it comes to such services because not only it was sued but it was also demanded to provide private details about the users who accessed its page. However, TorrentSpy quickly rejected the demands as its privacy guidelines prohibited this action.