ZeroPaid.com » edonkey

CES 2010: Conversation with Tom “Slyck” Mennecke

Bruce Lidl — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:43:10 +0000

While CES is primarily a occasion to see new gadgets and new software, it is also a gathering of hundreds of thousands of technology enthusiasts, both professional and hobbyist. Visitors come from all over the US and the world, and it can often make for some great conversations about the devices we love (and sometimes hate). At this year's CES, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the longest-serving and most knowledgeable observers of the file-sharing scene around, Tom "Slyck" Mennecke of slyck.com. Surrounded as we were by thousands of flat-screen TV's and Internet connected media gadgets, we couldn't help but have a conversation about the content that will likely fuel many, if not most of those devices, that is, files obtained by file-sharing networks, from Bittorrent to Usenet to direct download sites. It was, I think, a somewhat unusual discussion for this year's CES 2010, as there was little to no open acknowledgement of the overwhelming presence of unauthorized content on the Internet and the hard drives of the likely consumers of all that new hardware (aside from some tech policy panels I'll be writing about in the future). Even after all these years (slyck.com went online in August 2000, called slyway.com at first) Mennecke still finds the file-sharing community to be endlessly fascinating. As Mennecke says "we've come a long way from the days of Napster and Gnutella," and new "big things" keep coming up, even as Bittorrent continues to dominate after all these years. Mennecke thinks the big developments in the near future will inevitably be centered around the proposed movement of ISP's into copyright enforcement, as has started in some European countries and could spread to the US as well. If ISP's step in with "deep packet inspection," filtering, or "graduated response" aka "3 strikes" policies, Mennecke expects rapid responses from the file-sharing community. "The sheer brute force that the community can marshall in numbers" against any new technological barriers to file-sharing guarantees in Mennecke's mind that the ISP-centered plans will fare no better than the mass lawsuits of the RIAA/MPAA, or the attempted fake file floods of companies like MediaDefender, did against the rising popularity of file-sharing online. As he points out, "we are already seeing new innovations coming to file-sharing right now, that will make the work of the ISP's that much more difficult, including encryption, SSL, and VPN services like that now offered by Giganews." In Mennecke's view, the resiliency of the community ensures a vigorous response to any coming corporate attack on file-sharing in the US, although as he points out, every country is different, with different laws and broadband infrastructures. "What might prove true in the US may not be the case in the EU or other countries," according to Mennecke. We also discussed a number of other topics in the file-sharing world that continue to amaze Mennecke, notably the surprising survival of many earlier networks and protocols that seem technically outdated yet maintain robust community of users. "eDonkey is not only going strong today with over 3 million users," according to Mennecke, "but its shift from a centralized to decentralized and non-corporate structure was a really amazing feat." The quality of camcorder captured films is also a trend that Mennecke is impressed with, as the often-derided as virtually unwatchable in theater produced "Cams" have become far more respectable, particularly for films without a lot of movement or action. "They're actually pretty decent!" Mennecke says, which is a statement I would not have expected to hear. Slyck.com remains a pioneer in the file-sharing world after all these years, and Mennecke's obvious passion and enthusiasm ensures that it will continue to provide invaluable coverage and information for the community long into the future.

How to Use eMule? A File-Sharers Guide

Jared Moya — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:55:40 +0000

Quick, easy-to-use guide to get you up and downloading movies, music, TV shows, and more using eMule.

Many of you out there are still fans of eMule and the ED2K network. So it’s with you in mind that I created the guide below to help you set up the program and even about where to find content to download.

Table Of Contents

1. Downloading And Installing eMule

You can download eMule by Clicking here. The Installation of eMule is actually pretty straight forward. The first thing you will be asked for is your installation language, most of you I would imagine will be selecting English. After you have done this click OK and you will see the Pic to the right of this text. Quickly read it and click OK. Now you will be shown the eMule License Agreement, I recommend you read through it and accept it. Next will have to choose which components you have to install, by default, they are all selected and you shouldn’t change this. Click Next and you will be asked to specify a destination folder, the default folder is fine but if you want to change it to anything else it won’t affect eMule’s performance at all. Now click Install and it should very quickly copy files to the destination directory. You can now click Close. eMule should now appear in your Programs list on the Start Menu. Before we actually get into running and customizing eMule, It is very important that you get an idea of how the Networks function and some background information on eMule. It won’t take long to read over the next section so I advise you don’t skip it. Knowledge of how a network works, can help later on when you are trying to achieve higher download speeds or releasing files on the Network.

2. Introduction to eMule, eD2K and Kademlia Networks

The Original Client that used the Donkey (or eD2K) Network was eDonkey2000. However, many found that eDonkey2000 was generally buggy and that the interface could be improved upon. So the eMule Project came to be, led by a developer called Merkur. Right now, eMule is probably the fastest growing P2P client there is and it owe’s this to it’s open source policy and the many developers that have contributed to it. eMule is developed without any adware or spyware and is completely free. It is developed as a hobby and aims to make no profit. However, donations to its cause are welcome. For more information on eMule and its team of developers visit http://emule-project.net.

2.1. The eD2K Network

As I stated earlier, the eD2K Network began with eDonkey2000. Now there are many clients that use this Network. The Network is run by many different servers, not just one like a lot of other P2P networks. To connect to a server you must first get a server list for your client, we will see this later. When you connect to a server, the server tests to see if other clients can connect to you. If they can connect to you, you will receive a High ID, if they cannot, you will receive a LowID. We will read more about ID later. Once you have connected, your list of shared files will be sent to the server, the server will then add this list of files to the database. The servers do a lot of work including performing searches and gathering sources. Without these servers the Network would be useless and even one of these big servers falling could be fatal to the Network. Files are transferred in chunks, or Parts. Anybody who has downloaded a full part of a file is known as a source. A part of a file is 9.28MB. This Part system means that big files can be spread easily around the Network. We will read later how you can use this to your advantage to achieve higher download speeds.

2.2. The Kademlia Network

Whereas the eD2K Network requires you to connect to servers, Kademlia is a serverless network. Well, it’s serverless to the degree that you wont have to download a massive server list and keep it up to date to use it. Kademlia, sort of, makes a server out of every user. When you connect to the Kademlia Network, you are given an ID if you have a HighID. To connect to the network you require the IP of an eMule client already connected to it. A test like the HighID test in the eD2K Network is then performed, if other clients can connect to you, you will be given an Open status. If they cannot connect to you, you will be given a Firewalled status. If you have a Firewalled status, you will be required to connect to a server because Kademlia doesn’t support Firewalled clients yet, as it is still in it’s testing phase. As a client on the Kademlia Network, you are assigned a responsibility. Each client has a unique Hash ID and your responsibility might be to handle searches for a specific keyword. Then when another client searches the Network, the clients responsible for the keywords are found and the search results can be brought back. This is a pretty clever idea and it makes use of every client connected to the network.

2.3. eD2K Vs. Kademlia

So which network is better than the other?? That is the question you probably would ask first. The answer is.. neither is better. In fact, the only difference between the Networks is how you connect and how source finding and searches are performed. The files on each network are not completely different at all. One however might have more users than the other making the amount of files higher. However, there are some differences between them that have to be noted. Firstly, eD2K depends on Servers to work. If the biggest server collapses the Network potentially could be crippled until more servers come to facilitate. Kademlia however, doesn’t depend on major servers but to work properly would depend on a high client count. eMule now is the only client that supports Kademlia also, whereas many many clients support eD2K which means eD2K will probably for a very long time have far more users than Kademlia. Basically, each has it’s good and bad points, neither Network is perfect and lets not forget, Kademlia is still just in it’s early stages. I, for one, am looking forward to it’s future.

3. Customizing eMule

On your first run of eMule, you will get a Welcome to eMule Window. Here you will have to make some choices and fill in some details. Click Next and you will be asked to specify a nickname, [ link ] will be the default nick. It doesn’t matter if you don’t choose a nick, you can leave it at it’s default or use your own, it’s entirely up to you. Click next and you will be asked if you want to enable the automatic handling of Download Priorities. I personally think you should leave it switched on. Basically it will manage the priority of your downloads so that a download with 2000 sources wont affect one with 100 sources. The download with 2000 would be given normal priority and that with 100 could be given high priority. This will make sure that you get your files as fast as you can. Click Next and you will be asked about Upload Priorities. Basically this means if you are sharing a 2000 source file and a 100 source file, the 100 source file will get more upload priority because it’s a rare file. In my opinion, this option keeps the Network alive and I strongly recommend that you leave it switched on. Click Next, Now you will be asked about Full chunk transfer. If this is switched off, then your upload queue will empty quicker but it means you might not upload full chunks of files to a client. If you are a releaser of files you will definitely want this option switched on. I personally leave it on because spreading full chunks of files helps the Network to function better. Click Next again, now you will be asked a few different questions. First of all, this guide is for the eD2K Network, so select that as your Network. You can also select Kad if you wish to test it out. Safe Connect is next, basically if you tick this option beneath it, then connecting to servers might be a lot quicker but the chance of a LowID is higher. A LowID is not a good thing as you will read later so I recommend you leave this option off. You can also choose whether or not you want eMule to auto connect at startup, this is completely up to you aswell, if it matters, I don’t have this option selected because I like to choose different servers. Click Next now and click Finish.

3.1. Connection Wizard

After you have completed the “Welcome To eMule” wizard you will see the Connection Wizard pop up.It will look exactly like the pic to the right of this text. Later on we will be looking more into the Connection Settings but it’s best to sue the wizard to determine many of the settings. First of All, You have to select the Operating System you are using. Win XP and Win2K are known to handle multiple connections better than 98 or ME. For this reason, they are Higher recommended when running eMule. Selecting the wrong Operating System will cause eMule to run sluggish so make sure you have the right option selected. Concurrent Downloads DOES NOT mean maximum downloads. Remember that when selecting this. This option is there to determine the maximum amount of Sources you can have for a file. If you plan on only downloading 1-5 downloads at once then the maximum number of sources will be much higher than 6-15. Depending on your connection this source limit will be determined by eMule. As you can see I have selected 6-15 because I believe that eMule works its best when you have more than a few downloads. A single download might be slow but if you have others going at the same time too it doesn’t really matter to you because another might download faster. However, if you have a pretty slow connection I wouldn’t recommend that you download a lot at once, as the constant source asking and connecting might just kill your connection altogether. Now Last but definitely not least, you have to select your Connection Type. Please remember this is VERY important as it helps to determine your maximum download and upload speed as well as also being a factor in the max sources per file. Scroll through the list and if you see your connection in the list (as I have found mine, 1024/256) then select it and click Apply. If its not in the list, select Custom and put in the value’s yourself. If you do not know what to put in here, you should know. But it is easy to find out, just refer to any documentation you got with your connection or any advertisements for it,. You might see it say something like “Download Speeds Up to 512kb/s and Upload speeds of up to 128kb/s”. If this is the case it’s in the list, if the value’s you find are not in the list, then use the Custom Option. Finding out your Connection values is a vital factor and will determine how eMule performs for both uploading and downloading.

3.2. The Main eMule Screen And Getting ServerList

My Apologies for the horrible quality of the picture that accompanies this text, I had to resize it to fit the layout, I may add a full size screenshot to the forum but I’m sure you’ll understand what I’m saying anyway. So looking at the main eMule screen now, let me explain to you what you are looking at. There are 6 parts to it, The button bar at the top, the server list in the middle, Serverinfo and Logs tabs under the serverlist, server handling on the left and My Info. eMule has expanded since it first was released and now there is much more to cover in this tutorial than there was before. The very first thing we are going to do with eMule is get it a serverlist. If you look at the program to the left you will see a box that says Update Server.met From URL. This is what we are going to do here. Paste [ link ] into the box and click Update. There should now be many more Servers listed. To find the servers with the most users, look at the server list then look at the tiny buttons over it that say things like Server Name, IP, Description etc. Scroll across to where it says users and click it, It should now organize them by their user count. On my Pic, razorback2 is 565K users, that’s a lot of users for just one server. When you connect to a server you also may receive new servers to your list. This is very handy because if you connect to a lot of servers it sort of eliminates the need to keep updating serverlists, but I would still recommend you keep it a common practice. Now before you connect to a server, we have a long road of preferences to go through so let’s begin, click Preferences.

3.3. Your Preferences

This section will help you to customize your eMule client by changing certain preferences to suit you.

3.3.1. General Preferences

The first thing you will see is your General Preferences. Here you can change your Nick or Language from what you set in the Welcome Wizard. Under Miscellaneous you have a few more options. Beep On Errors will do exactly as it says, Bring To Front On Link Click means that if you click an eD2K link from a website, eMule will add it to the Download List and eMule will display itself in front of any other programs you have running. If you are not familiar with eD2K links, don’t worry about it, I’ll be going over them later in the guide. Enable Online Signature is another option that comes with eMule, there are programs out to edit and create online sig’s but I won’t be going over them in this guide. Prompt On Exit can be useful, basically it means that if you go to close eMule it will ask you if you are sure. For those of us who keep a lot of programs open and swap between the, all the time, this is useful because if we accidentally hit Close instead of Minimize we will not lose our sources or current download speed. If eMule closes, your Queue’s are gone and you will have to gather the sources all over again when you re-run it. Now under Startup are more options that you can configure. First of all Check for new version should always be checked, but the amount of days between checks is up to you, I like the Splashscreen but maybe for people with slower PC’s you might want to disable this. Start Minimized would be useful maybe if you were remotely starting eMule (i believe some irc programs like klipper can remotely start emule if you send an email to it). Now we’ll skip over Edit Webservices but we cannot ignore the eD2K Links button. If you have another client installed that uses the eD2K network, it may have set itself up to accept eD2K Links, which means, if you click a link to a file on the donkey network, that client will open and add it to its download list, not eMule. If the button is grayed out then it’s ok, eMule will accept eD2K links for you, but if it’s not, click it and set it to accept eD2K Links. Now click the Display button on the left.

3.3.2. Display Preferences

This is not vitally important but cool if you like to change the way eMule looks. Progressbar Style in my opinion is fine the way it is. The Progress Bars, are the bars in the transfers window for Downloads and Uploads. You will learn later about what the different colour’s mean on these bars. Leave Tooltip delay time the way it already is. Download list doubleclick to expand should be left the way it is. Basically when you are downloading something, if you doubleclicki it, you will see a list of sources you are downloading from. Indicate downloads with comments/ratings by icon also should be left on. When you are downloading something, if someone has made a comment, a little icon will appear beside the download, you can right click and choose to view comments. You will also notice the icon’s change for good and bad comments. Show percentage of download completion in progressbar is another option many people might go for because its like a standard on other P2P networks. I however couldn’t be bothered with it. Show transfer rates on title will just put the upload and download speed on the title bar of eMule, its up to you if you want that option. Show download info on category tabs is again up to you. Category tabs can be useful if you download a lot. If you go to the transfers window and look at the download, you will see a little tab that says All. If you right click this you can add in your own categories likes Video, Archives etc. Minimize To System Tray is again useful for those of us who run a lot of programs at once. it will put eMule into the system tray when minimized as a tiny icon that you can double click to maximize.Auto clear complete downloads might be handy for someone who downloads a lot but as many have said before there is something nice about seeing a download complete because the progress bar goes completely green, you can then right click and run the file. Now there is a little box that is below, I will let you decide if you want to disable known clients list (known clients are basically people you have uploaded to or downloaded from, this wont stop you or them from getting credit, it will just remove the list from eMule to save RAM), Disable Queue List (This wont stop upload queue’s it will just disable the list to save resources), Don’t update Queue list in real time (this one should be ticked because if you are sharing a lot of files the queue will get big, if it updates in real time it will take more resources constantly to keep updating like that) and Don’t recreate statistic graphs on resize (you can see the graphs under statistics window, just look and you will understand them). You can also now edit the font display for servers, messages and irc windows. Auto completion (history function) should remain enabled. You also have a handy reset button there if you make a mistake and something looks wrong. Now please click Connection.

3.3.3. Connection Preferences

The wizard you filled in earlier will already have determined a lot of the settings here but still we can mess with a few. If you can remember, I set my connection to 1024/256. Therefore, downloading would be possible at about 128kb/s down and 32kb/s up. Now you can change your Download Capacities anytime you want but if the wizard set it based on your entries, you should leave it. As for Download Limits you can just untick the little checkbox to make it unlimited. However, with Upload Limits you should never go higher than about 75% of your upload capacity. If you do and you try to use the internet you will notice a change. However, if you get cheeky and try to set your Upload Limit low, eMule will punish you. Now it wont exactly do anything bad but you will get very low credit and hence you will get very low download speeds. So remember, sharing helps you download faster so you should share as much as you possibly can. Your Clientport is the port used by eMule. Some ISP’s have become aware of port 4662 and blocked it. You will know this if you keep getting LowID’s or if a server warns you that it has been blocked. You can change your Clientport to any port that you like though. Next you see your Hard Limit and this is the maximum sources per file. This figure has been gotten from the wizard earlier if you can remember. Now you can change your Hard limit to anything higher if you think your connection can handle it. I think mine is really set at about 1500 because a lot of the files I download might not have more than 500 sources anyway. Connection Limit is important. You cant set it too low because if you do, eMule might struggle, if you set it too high, eMule might cause your internet connection to become fully used up. So leave it at the value that the wizard set it to. Some more options here include Autoconnect on startup (basically it will connect to a server as soon as eMule starts), Reconnect on Loss (this will find an alternative server if you lose connection to one you are currently on) and Show overhead bandwidth (this is not really important, overhead is kind of like the bandwidth you use requesting files from sources and getting search results). You can also select what Network you are using or both. If you want to run the wizard again, as you will see there is another link there for it. Please click the Proxy button.

3.3.4. Proxy Preferences

eMule supports the use of many different types of Proxy Servers on the eD2K Network. It supports Socks 4, Socks 4a, Socks 5 and HTTP 1.1. For any reader who doesn’t know much about proxy server’s I’ll explain. A proxy server kind of acts like a middle man between your computer and another. For example, if you were uploading to a user and you were using a Socks 5 proxy, the data would go from you, to the proxy and then to the remote user. So why would you want this? Basically many people would like to have themselves anonymous on P2P networks. Proxy servers can provide anonymity because the IP Address the remote user will be receiving a file from wont be yours, it will be the proxy’s IP. So it would probably limit bandwidth a bit but it can provide excellent security on the Network. While eMule supports proxy’s, with a HTTP 1.1 proxy there is no way that you can receive a High ID. HTTP 1.1 proxy’s are there so you can surf websites anonymously, not share files. Therefore, it would only work through specific ports and bandwidth would probably be very very limited. Still, if you want to try a http 1.1 proxy, go ahead, you can find many anonymous proxies at http://www.proxy4free.com. I don’t use Proxy server’s on eMule however so I cant provide any test results or anything since I haven’t ran any. I would like to hear on the forums from users who try it with a Socks5 or Socks4 proxy is that is possible. Now we will move onto Server, so click Server.

3.3.5. Server Preferences

Here are a nice list of things you can change related to servers. First of all Remove Dead Servers is a good option because it will keep your serverlist clean. Auto-update serverlist at startup is also pretty handy, you can click list and add in where to retrieve a serverlist from. Update serverlist when connecting to a server is a must have, when you connect to a server it sends a list, then the list is checked against yours and any you don’t have it adds to it. Update serverlist when a client connects is pretty much the same thing, just with other clients. Use priority system is good too, because you can change the priority of servers and if you are auto connecting at startup, or if you lose connection to a server, servers with high priorities will be selected first. You can change the priority of a server by right clicking it in the server list. Use smart LowID check on connect should be left checked, when you get a LowID its nice to know you need to do something about it at least. Many users probably don’t ever realize. We’ve already seen Safe Connect in the wizard earlier. Autoconnect to servers in static list only is basically there because some people prefer to connect to a static server. Static server is like a static IP it never changes. Set manually added servers to high priority will set servers you completely add yourself (that includes the IP address and port number, not when you add a serverlist) to higher priority that the rest of the list. So basically you see that you have a few options there related to servers. Once again its entirely up to you if you want to change any of these options, none of them will really destroy the performance of eMule so don’t worry. Now lets move on to Directories, click Directories.

3.3.6. Directories Preferences

Ok the life of eMule is the sharers and EVERYBODY who uses eMule should share. There is no excuse. Some people try to use the excuse that they are afraid to share on P2P networks because of organizations or corporations that might be monitoring them. Unfortunately, if you feel this way, you shouldn’t be using P2P at all. It’s not fair to attempt to eat off others and give nothing back. Now that I have that said, let’s look at the preferences. First of all, the default Incoming Files and Temporary Files folders will be listed. These folders are perfectly fine but if you wish to change them to any other folders there is no problem with that. Now to select shared directories, click the little + sign beside the drive and then beside the folders etc. Now if you select a folder, it will share all the files in that folder but if there are any folders inside it (or its subdirectories as they are known) they will NOT be selected. If you want those folders selected too, then when you are clicking the folder, hold down CTRL and it will select all the subdirectories inside it, and of course all the folders in those folders for however long the trail goes on. Now the last part is UNC paths. This is for remote paths for drives that are no on your machine but might be across a network. Just remember to add in the computer name, for example computer02cdownloads. So that’s how easy it is to setup a shared directory in eMule, let’s move on to Files now.

3.3.7. Files Preferences

Here are some options for file handling you might want to change. First of all, See my shared files/directories will allow anybody (or just those on your friends list) see your shared directories. They would do this by right clicking on you when you ar eon their friends list, or in their download queue as a source, then clicking view files. Most people prefer to keep this set to Nobody, but it’s up to you. Intelligent Corruption Handling should be left selected because file transfers have many different ways of becoming corrupt. If a part is corrupt, eMule would either re-download the part or recover the corruption. Now look at the Initializations box. Add files to download in paused mode might be handy for someone who plans on downloading a lot of files. You might have to pause some instead of choking your connection. Add new shared files with auto priority will be selected depending on what you put in the wizard earlier. It basically means that when new shared files come along, it will give them priority based on their popularity on the network. Add new downloads with auto priority is pretty much the same as what happens with shared files only it’ll be with files added to your download list. To make sure you get rare files and popular files properly you should leave this ticked. Cleanup Filenames is a nice little option. Basically some sites that offer links of files on the network will use the eD2K link to add the name of the site onto the filename. Here you can add words separated by quotes, then if they appear on filenames they will be filtered off. Now back to the other options, Try to transfer full chunks to all uploads will again be selected depending on what you set in the wizard earlier. I recommend it because uploading full chunks will make the networks users downloading files that pause for a long time with just a little bit to go more rare. Try to download first and last chunks first has some good things about it, like to preview a video file, you would need the first chunk. Whether you select it or not is up to you. Watch clipboard for eD2K links is an option that does exactly what it says, but I never really bothered with it, but of course, you can try it out if you want. Start next paused file if a file completes is probably needed by those people who download a lot of files and often have a few paused. When a file completes it will resume the next in line. Now look at the Video Player box. There have been external programs written that help to preview video files but I wont be covering those programs in this guide. You can add a video player in if you want however. Also Create backup to previewshould be selected. When you go to preview it will take a while to open the file but its the best way to do it. Anyway, now we are on to Notifications.

3.3.8. Notifications Preferences

Notifications in eMule were added kind of just to make some users happy I would think. All they essentially do is alert you on an event really. Pop up messages can come up in eMule and you might have no idea, so maybe making a sound play when it does is a good option, its up to you. The Pop out when box has a few extra features some users might find handy. Basically I’m not even going to go through them because if you look at them and read them, it really could not be more straight forward than it already is. Click Statistics now please.

3.3.9. Statistics Preferences

eMule has a statistics windows that some people might like to look at to see how much they have downloaded or uploaded altogether, these are some preferences for its display. Take a look at the statistics windows before you look at the preferences. This is also pretty straight forward. You can adjust the time delays for graphs to update, select background colour’s etc but I’m not going to explain this either because it’s far too straight forward. Move on to IRC.

3.3.10. IRC Preferences

eMule has a built in IRC client. Here you can select a nickname, it can be anything, it doesn’t have to be what you picked to be your eMule Nickname. The Channel List filter will only display channels with a name that you choose or a certain amount of users. If you entered 100 as the value, only channels with 100+ users would be displayed when you connect to IRC. The Perform string is basically a line of text you can pout in that will be sent to the server on connection, it could be /join #emule to make sure you join the eMule support channel when you connect. Now there are a lot of options in Miscellaneous box so I’ll run quickly through them. Play sound events is not really needed, i have never had it selected when I used to use eMule IRC. Connect to help channel will automatically connect you to #emule when you connect. This is a nice little trick by the eMule team which has made them usually with 1000+ users on the channel. Load server channel list on connect will display all the channels on the server when you get connected, if you have decided to filter anything you probably wont get the full list. Add timestamp to messages is something that should always be selected in my opinion. It will simply add the time the message was said in front of the message. You have the option to Ignore Info Messages too. Ignore Misc info messages should be left alone as it really isn’t annoying or does any harm, Ignore Join info messages will make sure that when someone joins a channel that it wont announce it on your screen, this can be annoying on a channel with a lot of users. Ignore Part info messages will make sure that when a user parts from a channel it wont be announced and Ignore Quit info messages will stop the announcement of a user quitting the network. You can also Ignore eMule Protocol Messages. This is basically the same as Ignoring Info messages above it so I’ll let you decide between the two options. Accept eD2K links in IRC means that you will be able to click eD2K links in IRC so that the file it references will begin downloading in eMule and From Friends Only will only accept eD2K links from users who are in your friends list. Now on to Security settings.

3.3.11. Security Preferences

These are your security preferences. First of all your IP Filter can be very useful. While i wont be covering most of it I’ll give you some information on it in case you would like to use this option. Basically if you build an ip filter list with a lot of IP ranges in it, if those ranges show up in either your upload or download queue, they will be blocked out. These can include anything from law enforcement to hackers. If you wish to get an ip filter list, go to google and search IPFilter.dat im sure you’ll find a result. In the Messages box you can choose to Filter messages containing certain words or phrases. You can also Accept from friends only which will mean if any msg’s you and they are not on your friends list, you wont even receive it. Accept from valid clients only will make sure you don’t get messages from fake clients that might be trying to spam you or something and the Advanced Spamfilter should always be switched on. In the Comments box you can choose to filter any comments that contain words of your choice. In the Miscellaneous box you should leave Leave Secure Identification ticked and leave Run eMule as unprivileged User unticked. This is the last preferences we will go over since the scheduler is straight forward, web interface will not be covered in this guide and extended settings are also straight forward enough for you to work it out. Now I will cover some things you should know.

4. Important things to know

I can understand this guide can be boring but it’s nearly finished and some of the things coming are a lot more interesting so no worries. Here are some things that are nice to know of in eMule.

4.1. Client ID

Remember I told you that you get an ID everytime you connect to a server? Well it can be low unfortunately and that is bad for you. So what is a LOWID? Its when your client port is unreachable basically. Its usually a firewall or a router that is causing the trouble and often even your isp. A LowID is an ID lower than 16777216. So how can you try to defeat it? First try changing client port to 80 instead of 4662 (make sure to restart emule afterwards). To give full access to port 4662 and eMule on your firewall. Or to configure your router for port forwarding for your client port. Unfortunately sometimes a Client ID is very hard to fix.

4.2. eD2K Links

eD2K Links are links that can be added to webpages that when clicked will start a file downloading in eMule. The page that has the eD2K link does not offer the file at all just references to a file already on the eD2K Network so it’s legal and should stay that way. At the end of the tutorial are some links to Websites that post eD2K links. To get an eD2K link of a file that you are sharing, go to shared files in eMule and right click on one, you can then click, Copy link to Clipboard. This helps if you are trying to release a file on the Network.

4.3. Queue Ranking

What you see to the right is queue ranking.You can see this if you go to a download in your list and double click it. Basically when you queue on a source you need a position in their queue. As you can see, I am pretty close to the first few before they transfer to me and the one on top is currently transferring data to me. You can improve your QR by uploading (remember the credit system?). It’s also the same for other people too, they get a position open your queue. If you look under transfers and click the Uploads button, it changes to On Queue and then Known Clients.

4.4. Progress Bars

Please excuse the measurements of the pic appearing on top of the progress bars, nothing I could do about it. Anyway, the colour’s are, Red – A part you don’t have + is not found on any source, Blue – Available part, the darker the blue, the more available it is, Black – A part you have downloaded and Yellow – A part you are currently downloading. A bar gone fully Green means complete. The numbers can be explained easy. The first number is the amount of sources you are queued on, the second is the total number found and the number in brackets, the number of sources transferring to you right now. So as you can see its not complicated or anything.

4.5. Things to check out

There is more to eMule than I have added to this guide and over time you will notice the little extra things about it. What you should do is right click on downloads and uploads and see the options you have with them, also with shared files. There are also new things under the Tools button. There is a lot for you to check out yourself, this guide has just shown you how to use it. I didn’t ass in searching for files because honestly, it couldn’t be any easier, If you choose to search local, then you will search just one server or you can select global server which will bring back results from all servers. You have to be connected to search. There are also other programs that work for eMule like Donkey Doctor that you might like to check out, they can help sort out a lot of problems you can encounter with downloads.

5. eD2K Link Sites

This is a list of sites that post eD2K links. They do not offer any pirated downloads, they only offer links to files on the eD2K network and therefore are not really doing anything wrong.

eDonkey2000′s demise illustrates open source’s problems in community-centric computing

Jared Moya — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:24:59 +0000

Somewhere on an old backup disc buried under a stack of magazines, I still have a copy of the eDonkey file-sharing client. Last month its creator, MetaMachine, agreed to give $30 million to the RIAA in order to duck threatened litigation. The eDonkey2000 Web site has since disappeared, replaced by a belligerent message intended to scare away visitors by implying that they are being watched. Why did eDonkey2000 fail in an arena where proprietary projects are still thriving?

eDonkey2000 was one of the oldest still active peer-to-peer programs, predating the completely decentralized network model. Although it was Napster that blew open the door to P2P, eDonkey did popularize some features that proved important to later systems, such as identifying files by their MD4 hash, which served both as a file integrity check and as a fraud prevention measure, and the ed2k: URI scheme, which simplified searches by allowing users to link to files on the network from HTML pages.

eDonkey2000 was among the first (if not the first) to implement both ideas, and a member of the first generation of multi-source transfer applications. All are now staples in file-sharing, and practically a given in newly conceived protocols.

Moreover, all of these features live on in the eDonkey-compatible clones that sprang up as eDonkey2000 evolved from a one-man show into a corporate entity. eMule, xMule, and aMule have taken eDonkey’s Multisource File Transfer Protocol and extended it. MetaMachine, on the other hand, shifted its resources back and forth between eDonkey2000 and its Overnet project, fracturing its own market well before the recording company lawyers started their harassment in 2005.

On the subject of what eDonkey2000′s death would mean for his own project, eMule developer Hendrik Brietkreuz replied, in short, none. Instead, he thought, the real question ought to be why anyone was still using eDonkey2000. Despite its age and shortcomings, eDonkey2000 still had plenty of users. Answering his own question, Brietkreuz said, “I suppose there are many reasons: it is a very stable and large network” using a “feature-rich” protocol. “So, if you have a large network, nice protocol, and good software to access it, why would you not stick to it?”

German police lock up AND sue eDonkey file sharers

Chris — Tue, 23 May 2006 19:03:48 +0000

German police have filed criminal charges against more than 2,000 people accused of using the eDonkey file-sharing network to share copyrighted music illegally, the recording industry’s trade group said Tuesday.

The legal action, which will also include claims for compensation under civil law, is “the biggest single action against illegal file sharing,” according to the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).