Almost as old as Napster, Gnutella has been part of the P2P community since April of 2000. Since that time, Gnutella has had its share of ups and downs. When Napster was wiped clean off the face of the Earth, hordes of users stampeded to the fledgling Gnutella network. The version available at the time (the dreaded .56) was unable to support the massive influx of users, prompting its collapse.
Since that time, Gnutella has maintained a presence in the P2P community. However, “maintained” would be the best-case description for this community. During the earlier days of P2P, this network would continue to struggle against more efficient networks such as WinMX or FastTrack. Interestingly, over time WinMX and FastTrack’s prominence in the P2P community would wane, while Gnutella stood its ground.
Today, Gnutella is nothing like its original version .56 predecessor. Gone are the days of racing across IRC Gnutella chat rooms looking for an IP address that would offer access to the network. Modern Gnutella applications are once again being taken seriously, as clients such as LimeWire and BearShare offer an acceptable adventure into this network.
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