How the eDonkey Network Functions

The eDonkey Network (a.k.a eDonkey 2000 or eD2k) is a P2P network that is based on the sharing of files over servers. These servers act like a bridge that connect all the files together and allow people connected to download files from other connected users. This concept allows the downloading of large files, and also keeps the files available for a longer time than other P2P networks.

Currently, eDonkey servers (like Sharing Kingdom 1) can hold up to 20 million files and connect hundreds of thousands of users to each other. The availability of files is high, meaning you can find almost any file you're looking for, if you're connected to the right server. The larger the server, the more sharers (or uploaders) you'll find for a particular file.

As for eDonkey clients, the most used of all clients is eMule. It is responsible for 90% of eDonkey users. That's why I'll be giving you a quick look at this client.

As you can see in the picture below, searching for the words "prison break" will bring up a whopping 1521 results, and even more can be pushed through by clicking the "More" button.



Don't forget though - the amount of results depends on the server you're connected to, because each server has different users which means different files. If you look at the results in the picture above, you'll see that all of the files are blue except one, which is black. The color blue indicates the availability of the file(s), the more darker the shade of blue, the more available it is. You can also see that there are a couple of columns; size, availability, complete, type and file ID.

Size is how large the file is in megabytes. Availability is how available the file is, but you can see that from the color of the file name. Complete is how many parts of the file are available; the more, the better. Type is simply put as the file type. File ID is the code of the file.

If you've understood this article, you're on the way to becoming a P2P professional, because this article almost completely covers the eDonkey network and eMule, the best of all eDonkey clients. I hope you enjoyed this article and learned something new. Digg this post or post a comment if you enjoyed it.

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