P2P Programs That Don’t Connect
January 02, 08 by sharky 2,658 viewsP2P Programs that don’t connect (and other things to avoid)
In our unabated drive to find P2P networks that people are using to share files (old and new, big or small), we’ve searched high and low for every and all networks that people could possibly be using to swap files. Many of our sources for these P2P programs, and the working ones, came from the SourceForge website. We conducted searches for “file sharing” and “P2P” software - and shoveled through the massive list of 620 different results. From these results we tossed out all the ’source code only’ queries (we’re not about to start compiling code, and likely neither are you - so we only tested things that contained an executable *.EXE file) although we did test some *.JAR/class files under Java.
It should be noted that these aren’t bad P2P programs - they simply don’t connect to a viable network or people using them (as is). We tried our best to get these apps to connect through various tweaked settings and system requirements, but to no avail. We even resorted to search engines to try and find users/forums that lay out special instructions, database files of users, or IP network addresses to import. Perhaps we’re wrong about some of them - there’s a chance they’ve turned into elusive darknets that we couldn’t circumvent. However you slice it, these are time-wasters for most general filesharers! (most links are included if you want to have a go for yourself).
Here’s the list of P2P stuff that we couldn’t connect to:
Epicea v0.15s - We wanted Epicea to work - it supports a total of 6 P2P networks including giFT, FastTrack, Overnet, eDonkey, Gnutella and even BitTorrent - but it just wouldn’t connect. We’d have thought it’d be able to at least connect to Gnutella.
FileSeeker v1.0 - Fileseeker installs nicely (requires the GnucDNA install - included with release) but will never connect to any users. Searched high and low for support but never did find anything - their main website is gone as well.
Freewire/FreewireP2P - Small ‘installer’ program never connects to download the larger executables - perhaps the program has been discontinued. The last update of the Freewire website was way back in 2002.
Funtoosh - This Gnutella P2P client installs nicely, and shows network activity, although it wasn’t able to connect to any other users. Connectivity remained at 0% and searching yielded no results. As of 2006-05-17, this project is no longer under active development.
Gloster P2P - We weren’t able to connect to the ‘test’ node or any other Gloster users (not that we could find any, anyways.) Apparently it’s a F2F network. Also, we couldn’t connect to the supplied IRC channel, either.
GNucleus (the program) (latest build 2.2.0.0 - development halted July 2005) - It installed fine, but won’t connect to the two offered networks (G1/G2). However, the GNucleus source code has successfully been used by other P2P programs, notably TruxShare.
Hornet P2P - Hornet P2P is a derivative of the ANts P2P protocol. After a successful installation of Hornet, this program will never connect to any peers.
Hydranode v0.3.0 - After a successful installation, this program will never connect to the lone network it runs on (eDonkey2000).
JNapster - A set of Java classes for connecting to a Napster Music Server to carry out tasks such as login to a Napster Server, find a song based on a keyword, download music, get the listing of a specified user’s song library. While JNapster comes pre-loaded with a list of servers - it can’t connect to any of them.
Mammoth - We tried two different client programs, but neither would connect to the network (FastTrack). Not that you want to be connecting to FastTrack, anyways!
MNet - We tested this P2P file sharing application, but couldn’t generate a single search result - nor could we publish any files to the MNet network. It also appears that development has been halted since early 2005. A ’search’ for MNet didn’t yield very much information, either.
Musicom - Installs nicely, but never connects.
NapShare v2.2.4 - Installs fine, but never connects.
NetShare v2.0.0.2 - Installs nicely, but doesn’t connect to either network (G1 or G2).
Nova P2P v1.7/1.8 - Neither version will connect to the lone network: Gnutella.
Phosphor v1.2.2 - Neither could we connect, nor could we find any servers to add to the program.
SUMI Anonymous P2P - We weren’t able to get SUMI to connect.
Torrent Searcher v8.0 - Will never connect to any of the offered networks.
Zeus P2P v0.96 - Zeus is a P2P program that doesn’t connect to any of the offered networks (Ares, Gnutella, OpenFT). Although we assume the project has been cancelled and classified as “dead” (www.zeusp2p.com has been sold/abandoned), the Zeus installation file can still be found for download among less-popular shareware/freeware websites.
Other Discontinued P2P Clients
Chungles P2P - Couldn’t find any other users to connect to.
eAnt - spinoff version of ANts P2P - project is classified as “dead”.
Gnotella - discontinued Gnutella client
IRNet - P2P Network (no connection)
Kedora - (won’t run after installation - main website is down)
Mutella - Gnutella client
Newtella - Gnutella client
P2S - Peer to Speaker v0.3 (won’t connect to the music)
PEERahna - Gnutella client
Phosphor 1.2.2 - Never connects to any servers.
Privale Network - (won’t connect)
Schnap - Gnutella client for music only (won’t connect)
Scour Exchange - This P2P program can still be found available for download from www.oldversion.com. It will never connect.
SwapNut - Gnutella client
ToadNode - Gnutella client
XoloX - Gnutella client
Other things to avoid.
Just a grab-bag of tips and miscellaneous programs to avoid.
Perfect Dark is a next-gen Japanese P2P application. Like Winny, we were unable to circumvent the settings. We found an ‘ad-hoc’ English translation service for it, but it was rudimentary at best.
There is a webpage that does a pretty good job of explaining how to work this baby - in English. Check out the link here.
TorrenTopia had an innovative idea: To create a BitTorrent program with an integrated *.torrent search engine! (One flaw though - the search doesn’t work!!). We tried a search for ‘movie’ on ThePirateBay and it came back with ZERO results. Worse, the BitTorrent side of it contains all the features of mashed potatoes. Now if only the search worked, we might be able to overlook the other shortcomings.
Winny v2.0b6.6
Winny (or WinNY) is a Japanese P2P application. For the life of us, we just couldn’t get Winny to connect to anything. Maybe it’d help if we could read Japanese.
Avoid software that offers to “speed up”, “turbo” or “accelerate” your existing programs, whether it’s BitComet, Limewire, Azureus, BitTorrent, or anything else. Many of these programs will not do anything to help your download speed that you can’t find mentioned on this site or any other. They will, however, separate you from your dollars, and it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to get any refund considering the nature of what these programs do in the first place. Want to really increase your speeds? Download files from the most users on Limewire, download torrents that have the most seeds/peers, and shell out for faster Internet. There’s absolutely nothing these addons can do if you’re downloading from just 2 users or 2 seeds, anyways.
Never “pay” for any P2P/BitTorrent software. There’s bound to always be sites that prey upon a small percentage of unsuspecting and unknowledgeable consumers, and it must work to some degree - these little “Ads” are everywhere! Especially since many programs are open-source; it’s too easy to tweak some tiny GUI aspect to the program and repackage it as new (albeit with a less-than-free price, too). But don’t let this entirely dissuade you from upgrading to a “PRO” version of reputable stuff like Limewire, etc. Although these “PRO” versions can be found FREE through a search from within various P2P programs, they’ll almost never be found for free by doing a search in a web browser.
01 • winny Says: 05.02.08 at 7:26 pm
you need to get a list of nodes that you input into winny oterwise it wont connect. also you need to input 3 clusters word depedning on which ones you choose oyu will get connected to other nodes with people who put similar clusters.
if you put game avi mp3 you will find people sharing these files
winny works perfectly well, there are even pages in english which explain hwo to use it,
its not a failed software like the others you talked about, it’s the n1 p2p software in Japan well ahead of Bittorrent!!
anyway, if you don’t speak or read Japanese, you wouldnt find many files anyway because most winny users are Japanese or Japanese speaking and share files with Japanese names.
Winny is much more advanced than he ps2p software that are popular in the West, but there is also Share and Afterdar wich are even faster. know maybe bittornet users who can d/l at 20 mbps per second?
02 • winny Says: 05.02.08 at 7:27 pm
i meant perfectdark not afterdark
03 • sharky Says: 05.02.08 at 8:18 pm
It’s not the P2P program that negates the speed of the transfers being served through it. If everyone who used BitTorrent had a 20mbps connection, certainly download speeds would be comparatively quicker.
—Sharky
04 • zig Says: 21.05.08 at 10:31 pm
Apparently there’s an English version of Winny at
http://www.geocities.com/winnyenglish/, so you may want to test it. More amazingly, a link there points to a site which claims to host Winny’s source code. It would be very interesting if someone with coding skills tried to compile it, because according to Wikipedia Winny’s source code wasn’t available. But who knows, maybe it “leaked”?
05 • ZIG Says: 04.07.08 at 2:35 am
Well, I played a bit with Gnucleus. In fact it works like a charm, apparently it’s just that its nodes/webcache list is outdated (I’m not sure but I really suspect that this is all it was about). I fired up Shareaza 2.3.1.0, picked up the IP and port of a G2 I was connected to and entered it. Gnucleus completed its nodes list with fresh information it gathered from this hub and connected to others. (Gnutella worked out of the box, but in case the same problem happened with this work, it would be enough to pick up an ultrapeer from the live connection list of say LimeWire, and all the nodes info would be then updated. Moreover, the IRC chat welcomes with a useful message about this problem).
Regarding other Gnutella applications which do not connect, I suppose a similar approach might be helpful.