Direct connect is not " The only thing File sharing needs "

[GTA]

We were all new to filesharing at one time. Some of us used 56k or lower at one time. So I wonder when people say "DC is the only thing file sharing needs to stay alive" Thats not true. Where would new people to file sharing go? DC was the first program I tried and EVERY hub I went to kicked me becouse I didn't share enough. That sucks. Then I finally found one that let me stay and they didn't have anything. So DC really is not "THE BEST" Its not the all around "BEST" program. Please nobody say that again.

[gorphon]

I havent heard anyone say that but I must agree with the assessment. the key here is the word NEEDS.... and while the statment is a generalizxtion and could be said about any number of programs and methods for transfer of information it is still true.

What that statement means is this: if fast track, gnutella, irc, newsgroups, opennap, and all the others were to somehow be shut down, DC would more likely than not still be around due to the nature of the program itself and sites like no-ip.org. Now this is unlikely of course, some of those other programs I listed have been around much longer than DC and will still be here far in the future...

And, if we are talking about the survival of filesharing, the learning curve could soon be much steeper, making it more difficult for newbies to learn. So, the statement made is still, fo all intents and purposes true. Survival and ease of use are two seperate things. Luckily, we are not at that point yet and you have a wide range of progs to choose from.

But, perhaps ZP should offer a section for how to *backup* cd's. dvds. and games that we have purchased.... that is the best way for newbies to get involved in the scene... and gone would be the days of people having any right to complain about not being able to get files. The more effort you put in on DC the more you get out of it, thats the beauty of the program and its also what turns many people off about it. After all, the majority of us DO live in an instant gratification minded society.

[method]

I think the people who've said it's "best" are those with large shares and broadband...

it's not the best... it has plenty of flaws and as seph as pointed out in the past, it's a dead end protocol.

However, if you've got files, got broadband and tried DC or DC++ for a while, you'll just look at 90% of the other networks and go... "wow.. all that complicated shit (swarmloading, hostcaches, multisourcing, participation ratings, verification links, sig2dat, etc.. ,etc..) for what?!?!? - less than what i get from single sources on DC!!"

I AM very pro DC and DC++, they might not be the best.. but nothing is.. It's just good for the big-sharers and fast-connecters..

If you've got few files or you're on dial-up (c'mon... it's 2003 nearly!!!).. you're bound to be pissed off with Direct Connect. Don't blame you to be honest, if i was on dial-up and had no files... i don't think i'd like it either!!!

[Ken17625]

It's not "the only thing file sharing needs". I like it because I have broadband and I share 15 gigs of shareable stuff. But no, its not everyones answer. Whoever claimed that is wrong.

[GTA]

I think the person that said that was in the thread "Shareaza sucks but great" I think thats what it was called.

[rubberman]

dead end protocol? What ya mean by that. Do you think it won't last long cause it doesn't have all the fancy technologies that other networks have? IRc uses a decade old protocol, and it's still the most popular file trading tool out there.

[notbob]

Originally posted by GTA
We were all new to filesharing at one time. Some of us used 56k or lower at one time. So I wonder when people say "DC is the only thing file sharing needs to stay alive" Thats not true. Where would new people to file sharing go? DC was the first program I tried and EVERY hub I went to kicked me becouse I didn't share enough. That sucks.

just because you are new to filesharing is no excuse to not have enough files for dc--rip your dvd collection to divx, rip your cd collection, hell you can rip the libraries' cd collection for free

don't give the lame-ass "my hard drive isn't big enough" either--they are less than 100$ (us) for an 80GB, and are easy as hell to install

it would be impossible to shut down, unlike winmx and kazaa which are server dependent (at least to a certain point depending on who you believe)--these companies own servers--dc is great (even if not actively developed) because ANYBODY can run a server/hub and can do it for as long as 1 copy of the program exists (client/hub) anyone can start it back up

so to sum it up DIRECT CONNECT IS THE ONLY P2P ANYONE WILL EVER NEED

i'll never use another

[movieman]

If you haven't heard, I'm a DC hub owner.

I have owned my own hub for some time and enjoy meeting new and interesting people while running my hub. That is what originally sparked my interest in DC. I like the idea that I can "know" the person I am downloading a file from before I download it. Even if it's in a very very small way.

I'm not saying that DC is "the only" p2p we all need but I'm sure it's a great way to share files and make good use of any BW you have available (28.8k or higher).

I am running a hub on 56k dial up at the moment and allow any user with 100 mb of "good" share to join. The hubs who only want 20GB+ are only looking to advance themselves and no others.

I now it sound rediculous to be running a hub on 56k dial up but it works for me. Beside's I have found a great many scripts to keep out unwanted files (ie. underage porn,large useless files,vob's...ect...) I have "Triviabot", "FAQbot"(I developed) and many more fun add-ons.

Anyway, I d'gress, it's a great p2p to use. Share what you have and go to hubs you know will let you in and you will increase your shared files tremendouslly!

And HEY! ... Have fun...that's what it's all about isn't it?

cya soon.... :D

[OrangeMoon]

i like DC and NOW DC is pretty good for a almost
all broadband users.
But it must get declining in the future.
perhaps this may be coming soon.
Do you know the open nap server that require
a larege amount of mp3 like 60GB and register?
many hubs will require rediculeous amount
and register.
and then a almost newbies for DC cant hang on
any DC hubs.
at last we forget DC...

In my cuntry ,all experts at p2p use opennap server.
they trade every categorys files,not only mp3 but also
movie,software etc.
but i cant login the server they login because
the servers require redicureous amount
and somethin crap,so its very hard
to get rare materials in my mother language.
a almost files belong to FEW experts.
only little mainstream files be relrased for
newbies.

i have 1,5Mbps ADSL and my 80GB secondary
hard disk is full,but..........

[ShareDamnYou]

yeah ture you need at least a gig to get on the shityist server and there is no swarming but that will come soon but on dc there is more files than any outer p2p network and i think everyone should learn somthing form DC forcing ppl to share works! but it is realy sad that some one has not made dc swarmable.
(if you want to be cheep just pop in a dvd share it that is a coupple gig right there i just did that at the begenning now i have like 15 gig in my shared folder.)

DC IS A MUST P2P PROG!!!!

[Sephiroth]

Direct Connect is not that great the protocol sucks so its pretty much frozen in its current form and it cannot support swarming because of how the protocol was poorly designed which it is because a pipe | in somones name and crash a hub and you cannot use $ dollar signs. Also this program is just as vurnable as open nap..

And the only way if you want to get anything is to stay on the "hub" for long hours which some admins expect people to stay on for hours and hours and share a ton of files..

It is not that great IMHO.. I have had no success with it ive tried everything that ive could have done so dont suggest anything and ive tried it numerous times.

I dont like the program itself, the setup, and the stupid restrictions and the attitudes of most of the hub owners.. I also dont think that this is a very good method because it does discriminate against narrowband and people without the hard drive space or files or who cannot run DC as a server in the hub..

Its all a huge hassle and the problem is that not that many people want to jump through hoops to get files. I believe that people shouldnt have to jump hoops and bend backwards.. I think its unneeded..

And IMHO there are alot less frustrating ways to do it and it just proves forcing people to share doesnt mean that downloads will always be faster or better. It doesnt work like that.

[notbob]

bah humbug!

on my hub i don't expect anyone to stay--in fact, i assume they WILL leave--but i don't care, because with mosearch, i can just go find THEM!

the beauty of dc is that you queue up all the stuff you want and just let it run instead of the constant babysitting opennap requires, or the complete lack of files on gnutella

and i have never once encountered a fake file(movie, music, anything) (empty folder to up their share size, yes)

try saying that on any of the other networks

[Sephiroth]

Thats just your hub.. Others arent like that way. Leave i meant shut the program down. Your assuming they have gone to some other hub and i dont believe that you really need to track someone down to get a file there are easier ways.

Like i said unless your going to run a server queue everything up and let it sit your probaby not going to have and good experiances with direct connect..

You are babysitting.. Your running a hub, watching chat, running scripts, queuing, tracking down "sources", and etc.. Like i said bending over backwards for a file.

The majority of fake files are extreemely easy to detect and avoid.

[notbob]

i actually look at the hub maybe an hour a day--scripts kick most of the fakes without my help--the rest of the time i'm not even home--i'm at work or school (or asleep)

[Sephiroth]

You dont have to be there to be bending over backwards.. Your running a server and running scripts and etc. just to be able to download files.. It seems pretty extreeme to me.

[notbob]

i'm an extreme guy

[TC75580]

Originally posted by notbob
i actually look at the hub maybe an hour a day--scripts kick most of the fakes without my help--the rest of the time i'm not even home--i'm at work or school (or asleep)
I can attest to that :black

Originally posted by Sephiroth
You are babysitting.. Your running a hub, watching chat, running scripts, queuing, tracking down "sources", and etc.. Like i said bending over backwards for a file.

You don't have to babysitting much more than you would on any other program unless you're running a hub. I don't spend much time on the program itself, it's mostly just watching do see how much has completed (which I also do on any other program). For me, all I have to do is right click someone's name and get the file list, then queue an album. If someone leaves, I don't go chasing after them, because most return anyway. If you want consistency, then watch the hub for a day or two and find out who stays online and who doesn't. Once you have that figured out, all you have to do is queue from those people and wait for the downloads to complete. It may be more work than multi-source p2p programs, but it's worth it. The content available on hubs are amazing. 95% or more of the music I have has come from DC - I have 4.45GB of music now, and I've only started downloading a week or two ago, when I had to reformat my drive. If that doesn't testify to the usefullness of DC, I don't know what does.

:devil2

[Sephiroth]

Yes but you still have to run it as a server 24/7 if you want to get any real benefit from it.. Its not flexible.. You have to scout for whos running their 24/7 server and who isnt.. My idea of file sharing is not being queued and having downloads faster than one or two kilobytes.

I dont think it is worth it.. Ive gotten more than the 4.5 gigs in one day using some other programs.. I think why people like it is that some can have a great amount of control over others..

[TC75580]

Originally posted by Sephiroth
Yes but you still have to run it as a server 24/7 if you want to get any real benefit from it.. Its not flexible.. You have to scout for whos running their 24/7 server and who isnt.. My idea of file sharing is not being queued and having downloads faster than one or two kilobytes.

I dont think it is worth it.. Ive gotten more than the 4.5 gigs in one day using some other programs..

I don't have it 24/7 at all, and I'm not queueing constantly, or I could get more. Right now, I have 7 downloads going at a total of 70 - 90kbps, which is near my max anyway.

"I think why people like it is that some can have a great amount of control over others.. "

I don't have any control (it only applies to hub owners).

[InspectorGadget]

I'm going to totally disregard the beginning of this thread and focus only on posts from the last few days...

OrangeMoon:

I can understand what you're saying.. dc is VERY unfriendly for new users especially nowadays, all I can say is in it's early stages it really wasn't all that difficult to get on for newbies

ShareDamnYou:

I'll agree that the forced sharing has worked for direct connect, but did you know that in dc's infancy there was no minimum shares? I think mazin was the first hub to put in a minimum share of like 20mb's or something just so people wouldn't come in sharing absolutely nothing, looking at it back then it really wasn't much different than other p2p's other than you couldn't share 0 files. And multisource downloading was just never in the plans for direct connect I don't think, hell I don't think any p2p's had multisource at that point, I know napster sure as hell didn't lol.

Sephiroth:

I'm not sure if you're the same Sephiroth that I know from dc but if so then you'll know exactly what I'm saying here...

the protocol part: 100% correct, the only thing I'll say is you've got to remember that vandel probably never did expect dc to take off the way it did, hehe and we all know he wasn't exactly the best programmer either, but nevertheless he created one of the more succesfull networks out there so I give him credit and respect for that :D

"And the only way if you want to get anything is to stay on the "hub" for long hours which some admins expect people to stay on for hours and hours and share a ton of files.. "

well no one is going to suggest anything there because that is the way to get success with dc.

"I dont like the program itself, the setup, and the stupid restrictions and the attitudes of "MOST" of the hub owners.. I also dont think that this is a very good method because it does discriminate against narrowband and people without the hard drive space or files or who cannot run DC as a server in the hub.. "

I quoted the most important thing to remember, there's some pretty cool hub owners out there with awesome ops ect.. but yeah there's alot more of them who are assholes too :(,
My take on that statement as a whole is that it's not dc itself that made the network that way (discrimitave towards some users) but the community itself changed it slowly towards that way.


" Its all a huge hassle and the problem is that not that many people want to jump through hoops to get files. I believe that people shouldnt have to jump hoops and bend backwards.. I think its unneeded.. "

see here's a good example of the costs that come with the forced sharing system, you lose the otherwise good users for your stated reasons which sucks, but on the other hand this is what kept all those leechers out there just want to download there files and not share a single thing back with no effort ect ect you know the classic selfish leecher stereotype off the network for so long.

"And IMHO there are alot less frustrating ways to do it and it just proves forcing people to share doesnt mean that downloads will always be faster or better. It doesnt work like that."

I totally agree with you there, direct connect isn't neccesarily better than any other network or medium, it just functions in it's own unique way.


NotBob:

"the beauty of dc is that you queue up all the stuff you want and just let it run instead of the constant babysitting opennap requires, or the complete lack of files on gnutella"

um no babysitting on dc? in my experience (it can vary alot depending what hubs and more importantly what specific users you're trying to download from, some hubs have more lamers than others) dc or dc++ needs as much babysitting as any other client does.

"and i have never once encountered a fake file(movie, music, anything) (empty folder to up their share size, yes) "

lol dc isn't immune to fake files either, they migrate their way from kazaa just like everywhere else, the only difference is if you actually pay attention to the chat some of the time most people know which files are fake and which ones aren't, of course it's best to just kick everyone sharing fake files out but ops can't be expected to babysit the hub ALL the time.

Sephiroth:

"You are babysitting.. Your running a hub, watching chat, running scripts, queuing, tracking down "sources", and etc.. Like i said bending over backwards for a file. "

NotBob:

"i actually look at the hub maybe an hour a day--scripts kick most of the fakes without my help--the rest of the time i'm not even home--i'm at work or school (or asleep)"

Sephiroth:

"You dont have to be there to be bending over backwards.. Your running a server and running scripts and etc. just to be able to download files.. It seems pretty extreeme to me."

Dc is always better when you're actively involved, and it's not surprising that many people find it to be alot of hassle, but that's part of the saying "some people love it, some people hate it" probably depends a lot on how much of a computer geek you are in most cases lol, anyways I really do appreciate all the extra time and effort the "Good" hub owners and ops do to try making things the best they can for those users who are there to share and not be a lamer, I'm sure all the users (minus the lamers) appreciate it too.

Sephiroth:

" I think why people like it is that some can have a great amount of control over others.."

that control is what makes dc awesome as long as it's NOT abused... sadly there's many many (especially most of the large swedish) hubs out there who give dc a bad rap because they're power hungry and it makes the entire network look bad to the majority of people.

{DISCLAIMER} This is a story about direct connect in it's prime

I can remember when I first came to direct connect back in december 1999, this was about a year before napster shut down I guess. I had a 30 gig hd which I shared 22-23 gigs of movies so I guess I was one of the more "elite" users (btw I got my share by ripping 6 dvd's myself and using wrapster to swap for more) and I connected to this Sweden[Goteberg]FTP hub, this was the biggest hub on dc at 350 users and a 10 gb min share (100gb now I think lol) and was instantly hooked, I searched for gone in 60 seconds cause it was still new and got about 50 results :)) I started downloading about 10 diff movies and went to sleep and woke up the next day and they were all either finished or still downloading, not a single one was cancelled or the user left. That was the first thing I noticed about dc users is they all seemed to stay online nonstop for days on end, so I downloaded something like 20 movies in a few days then decided to check out another hub that was english speaking called macgyvers workshop, minimum share of 2 gigs and 250 users or so. same thing there nothing but tons of movies and people who were always online, and you could talk in the chat because it was english, the ops were cool and it seemed everyone was always talking about computer hardware or something interesting so I thought it was cool that I was making all these friends while downloading stuff. I basically only hung out in macgyvers mostly since it had multihub search and friendly users... 6 months or so went by and dc had started getting pretty big, there was almost 100 hubs in the hub list and 2 of them were 500 user hubs (HUGE back then). This was about the time the first signs of lamers showed up.. there was no such thing as a share faker so what users would do is that network drive map thing with C: all the way to Z: or whatever of the same drive to get past the min share, these people weren't very common and everyone in the chat would cheer on the ops as the lamers got the boot :P

I guess dc had about 10,000 users by then and was still growing so people would share their entire C: or whatever they had to share to get in since most people knew you were lucky to find 1 copy of a movie anywhere else while a single hub might have 30 copies. So hubs started raising the min shares more and more to keep these lamers who'd share installed garbage out ect and it seemed to work, and the hubs that had the highest shares had all the top sharers in them too so they were awesome hubs if you had the 20-30 gigs to get in them.

Them along came the share fakers sometime around then, and... well once that thing came out it really didn't matter what the hubs min share was since anyone could get in, and the min shares were already that high so they weren't coming down.

Yet in my honest opinion all the share faking shit didn't really get out of hand untill dc++ came out, now nothing personal against the client here, but the simple fact that its relatively user friendly and makes searching much easier by connecting to a hundred hubs rather than go hub to hub attracted all the kazaa/winmx rejects because dc++ combined with a share faker made it all too easy for them to get files you can't get on other networks.

Many of the long time dedicated dc users have left dc for the confines of irc again after their favorite hubs went from being awesome goldmines of terabytes to goldmines of terabytes combined with a bunch of leeching lamers sharing garbage and faking the rest. most of the prominent hubs of back then are gone now, and replaced by hubs that are young (1yr or less) and don't have the loyal user following of the old school dc hubs, somewhat explaining why most of the "cool" hubs today just aren't what you were expecting when you probably heard of how awesome dc is/WAS

Dc is still good, probably much better than any other p2p for raw content, but what made it so special before is there wasn't all those who'd fake shares, start downloads and disconnect, cancel your downloads at will, this stuff was very rare before because users didn't want to be banned from their favorite hub (there was no where near the hub selection nowadays and the best hubs ROCKED) so in that sense it's not what it was, now it's basically no different than kazaa or winmx with the fakers/installed garbage shares acting as the non sharing users and the only thing that differs is there's more files on the dc net. Obviously there are places on dc that are much better than others but I'm trying to generalise dc as a whole

Sorry for the long post but it was 1 am and I felt like writing about dc and the biggest changes I've seen happen in my almost 3 years


if anything I've written is taken as an insult it wasn't intentional and probably 100% related to I'm tired and didn't look over the post, I just typed it as I thought of it and posted it :P



IG
<MacGyvers Wørkshøp>
-=E.V.I.L=-

[notbob]

i too have been around the dc world many times (was a registered user @ macgyvers, never was able to figure out if Angel was real or a bot)

I wandered through the hub scene, and there were lots of hubs (grand hub for everything comes to mind) where the "owners" (i still hate that term) have this whole "I am the king/queen and you are my loyal subjects--anyone to go to another hub shall be banned" Needless to say i got banned. a couple of other refugees started another hub (keeper of the deep) which i joined, and was the "big share" that helped to attract users.(after I left it jumped to a 1200 user network--I guess western swing and classic rock just don't cut it)

Keepers' "owner" is a great fella and (like me) shares many of your sentiments. DC is not the same anymore--it has become lame as far as the "society" goes, and i doubt it will change. I am in a private hub that rocks, and my hub is mainly for a few buddies of mine, and occasionally some nice europeans that drop by. Nobody I mean NOBODY chats anymore--the chat screen is now reserved for requests by lamers who are too lazy to search, or some dumbass advertising his new "hub"

now if you want Utopian societies, check out Francis Bacon. If you want files (and are an upstanding citizen and don't mind sharing) come to dc

[BlueLieu]

I have used GLO-Search to find the good hubs, "+hubs" or "+network" to find the other hubs in the same network. Then I picked the 5 I liked the best and I stay 24/7.

When I found DC I was about to pull the plug on my P2P activities because I was SICK of the fake files, leechers and stoopid rules. But hey, what was I gonna do? KLite got me into P2P, when it failed to offer the variety I wanted I started to use DC/DC++/GLO-Search.

I was sharing 10gb on KLite. I just wasn't motivated to share more (I have +100gb on CD, movies and such). But I wanted into the 40gb+ hubs, so I xferred lotz of movies to the HD and started going through hubs. Well, I got banned by a few who weren't happy I would only stay a day IF I had gotten what I came for. But now, as I mentioned, I share more and stay in a few 24/7.

So, just as Windows ushered in the general use of the Home PC by making it easy to use, so did the Napster/Morpheus/KLite programs bring the massess to P2P. But when these newbies grow up, as I did, and come to expect more, detest leechers and want the more rare files (Sopranos E4 before it was aired or the aplha of Doom3 for instance), I think DC is the perfect option. I know the community is not as talkative, but sharing information is the goal here. Whether that's chatting or opening up my 50gb share to others, it supporting the P2P network. I think DC has the right balence between openess and requirements. Facilitates more sharing and weeds out he riff-raff.

As far as DC being "dead", I think it ain't broke, so don't fix it.

[MetalKid]

Well, the whole "king/queen" thing won't work against people are are actually sharing 100+ GB of solid stuff. If you want power in DC, then you have to share quality files.

If you are getting slow speeds, there are usually ways to fix it. Some of the t1 and t3 people will have certain ports that are restricted. Usually switching your port to 80 will make your d/ls go a lot faster. Also, if nothing is showing up in the search, make sure you change to Passive mode because that will make it actually work, then.

And as far as people who aren't able to "share enough" to get into hubs, that is just stupidity on their part. Though, the name of the game is "File-Sharing". If you don't have any files to begin with, then you are what is called a leecher. Many of the people who don't have any files are just going to get what they want, and then leave and never come back. If you d/l something, you should always offer it for d/l to someone else. That is just common curteousy.

As far as getting banned right away, this is to be expected. Many hubs use bots and many of the bots are pretty stupid. If you get banned from some hub, just try another. There are hundreds, if not thousands, out there to choose from, so I wouldn't get discouraged from a couple of bannings.

People complaining about the fact that you actually have to share something aren't welcome in the DC community, anyway, so if they complain about that, then their comments are totoally useless. If you don't want to share, fine, then don't use DC. If you get into hubs and get leeched off of while being unable to d/l from other people, then just leave and close all the people you are u/l to. If you right click on the name, you can close the connection, and thus kick them off. Then just go to another hub until you can finally d/l something.

DC is as close as you can get to the IRC files. IRC is ultimately the best for video files of like anime or movies, etc, but DC is must more friendly and there really isnt a queue, so to speak.

[Miskatonic]

Do people with huge shares of like 80gb for example download only that which is usable to them, or do they just download random stuff in order to fill up their hard drive? The majority of what I download is music and anime vids, so I would have to download a hell of a lot to fill up a big hard drive. DC is one of the few places where I can easily find a lot of "underground" metal. Finding complete albums from more obscure 80's bands etc., is a pain on programs like Kazaa. Even old Priest songs can be few and far between.