Introduction
Why?
In today's growing number of file-sharing networks, same files exist on multiple networks. Each network has generally specialized in some specific range of files, e.g. small files, big files, rare files, new files etc. Thus the users must constantly juggle between multiple clients, depending on which kind of data they wish to download.
Secondly, with the growing range of desktop operating systems, people often use multiple systems simultaneously or switch between them, thus they must have a different client for each network for each platform they wish to use. Often clients do not exist for some platforms, which lowers the usability of that platform for those users. They have to either use emulation software, or not use the platform because of the missing clients.
With the increasing speeds of home internet connection speeds, and the increased mobility of technology, it is common to run clients on home computers, while controlling them from work/laptop computers from remote locations. A few years ago this was not possible yet, because of too slow home network connections, which were not capable of transferring enough data for decent remote control systems. However, nowadays, DSL links with speeds 0.5mbit and above are rather common, which opens up a new range of options.
Related to the above, the today's fast network connections are often more than is needed by a single user, so it is common to share it with other family members, neighbors and often even through entire buildings. When multiple users of the same network use various file-sharing applications, each of the applications is usually configured to take advantage of the entire available network, without care for other users on the same local network. This quickly leads to multiple clients filling the upload bandwidth, degrading the entire network performance for all users, creating frustration and anger among all users of the local network.
Many users of file-sharing networks are concerned about their privacy. This is mainly a problem in the United States, but also increases in Europe. Having thoughts for those who take their privacy seriously is important for any modern P2P application.
As Linux and Open Source are becoming more and more common, there is a large amount of people out there who refuse to use closed source software on general principle. Furthermore, closed source software is often known to contain adware/spyware, especially within peer-to-peer clients, which has made people very careful about closed source software in general. Open source code also encourages users' participation within development process and thus increases the development speed.
During the past few years, the processor speeds and memory amounts have raised significantly, so it has become common for applications to use huge amounts of memory for operation. However, what people forget that there are still large amounts of users out there on 5-10 year old computers, which lack both the faster processors and large amounts of physical memory. For those users, it is often very difficult to run today's software, and (especially in third-world countries) they do not have the resources needed to upgrade.
These are the issues we are trying to address with the project described below.
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