eDonkey2000 Review

Name: eDonkey2000
Homepage: www.eDonkey2000.com
Cost: Adware and Spyware
Recommended: No
Client no longer Available nor Operational.

(For the purpose of this article, I will refer to the program as “eDonkey2000” and the network as “ED2K”.)

At the dawn of the new millennium, central sever based networks like CuteMX, Scour, Napster and Audio Galaxy were all being sued. It became clear to the file sharing Community that a central server file sharing network was futile. Jed McCaleb took it upon himself to find another way. He went on to found MetaMachine.

September 6th 2000 MetaMachine released eDonkey2000. Rather that being dependant on 1 server, MetaMachine setup multiple servers around the world and released the necessary software for anyone to setup their own server. eDonkey2000 found these servers by using a list called server.met. These met’s would come with the program but could also be downloaded independently from websites. eDonkey2000 would use the met to connect to a server. Once connected to the server, a list for every file shared would be uploaded. MetaMachine also had a financial edge; eDonkey2000 was an adware client. Spyware was also included, but the user could opt out of that.

Now as if things couldn’t get any better for MetaMachine, they had another miracle in the works. May 7th 2002, MetaMachine released Flock. This was a completely decentralized file sharing app. Using DHT technology, Flock maintained connectivity by downloading a node list from a MetaMachine server. Once a connection is made, Flock finds more peers not listed in the initial node list. Once out of beta, Flock was renamed Overnet. Overnet was also an adware client.

eDonkey2000 and Overnet were ahead of their time. Their GUI’s were nearly identical. 1 used multiple servers, 1 used peers. No file type restrictions, no 128kb mp3 limit and equiped with MD4 to verify file integrity. With this network and money, MetaMachine entered uncharted territory. No file sharing program had ever had this kind of security before. One would think after some network problems were solved, MetaMachine would turn to improving their GUI’s. But it doesn't seem to be a priority.

Enter eMule. May 13th 2002, Hendrik Breitkreuz grew tired of the basic GUI and adware associated with eDonkey2000. He started his own project on Sourceforge. Septmeber 14th 2002, eMule version .19a was released. In this month, ED2K’s population was 557,998 users. On December 8th 2003, eMule-Project.com went online. By his time ED2K’s population was 1,577,527 users. Despite overshadowing eDonkey2000, eMule got a stamp of approval from MetaMachine.

Overnet also found an companion on its network. In January 2003, MLDonkey managed to reverse engineer the protocol and implement Overnet into its core. MetaMachine was not happy about this, they called MLDonkey a rogue client. To quote Jed McCaleb “If you would like your network free of misimplemented clients please mail MLDonkey and ask them to stop.”. MLDonkey’s response called for MetaMachine to release the source code for Overnet. MetaMachine denied the suggestion. In October 2003, Overnet hit 1 million users.

In June 2004, ED2K hit 2 million users. Overnet however was down to 800,000 users. It was clear to MetaMachine that they had lost their edge. But they had another trick up their sleeve. In August 2004, eDonkey2000 and Overnet were merged into 1 program. This program was released as eDonkey2000 v1.0. Overnet was discontinued.

In July 2005, the ED2K network cleared 5 million users. At this time some clients reported as many as 9 million users online. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the truth. SlyckTom grew suspicious. He contacted some big dogs in the ED2K world and found some disturbing answers. A group of people described only as “some stupid guys” had written code that artificially inflates the number of users online. The actual number was 4 million.

In September 2005, the RIAA began a fear campaign. They sent cease and desist letters to many different P2P companies. They chose to start this campaign because it was becoming clear that the MGM vs. Grokster case would set precedent against P2P programs. Their actions were felt throughout the P2P Community . WinMX was shutdown, development of the program was halted and the program lost the ability to bootstrap from WinMX.com. i2Hub shut down. BearShare began negotiations to avoid being sued into bankruptcy. LimeWire agreed to implement a content filter to protect copyrights. Ares sought out a safer host with SourceForge. And eDonkey2000 backed down too. MetaMachine announced that they would comply with the RIAA’s request. But as of today there is no sign of any copyright protection in the program. Their website is still up and running. They’re still providing mets for the ED2K network and node lists for Overnet. While it appears MetaMachine is alive and kicking it should be pointed out that there has not been a new version of edonkey2000 since July 2005.

While eDonkey2000 is a closed source program, it does have plugin features. There have been many plugins over the years. There’s one that removes the ad banner. One to preview media files before the download reaches 100%. One to scan your downloads for viruses. The list goes on and on. 4 plugins in particular made for an interesting program: The FastTrack plugin allows eDonkey2000 to connect to Kazaa users. The Gnutella plugin allows users to connect to the network used by LimeWire, Bearshare and other Gnutella clients. The FTP plugin allows eDonkey2000 to act as an FTP client. The BitTorrent plugin allows edonkey2000 to act as a very basic BitTorrent client. The BitTorrent plugin is the only network plugin that comes with the eDonkey2000 installer. This is because all the other network plugins are in beta.

With millions of ED2K users you end up with hundreds of millions of files. This leads to duplicate versions of movies, TV shows and music. Viruses made by losers with no lives. And fake versions of everything. There’s only 1 way to deal with this, verify the files one by one. This is done with ED2K links. An ED2K link is an URL that activates a download in your ED2K client. It sends the MD4 hash directly into the client and you immediately begin to search for this one specific file. Websites use this URL format to index and categorize files on the network. For example, ShareProvider indexes all sorts of files on the network. Each link is submitted by a member. Right now they have over 8000 verified files.

Today, eDonkey2000 is as advanced as a P2P application gets. The ED2K network is the top file sharing network right now with about 4 million users. Its secondary network Overnet has 3 hundred thousand users. The content spread out over ED2K makes any ED2K client the largest source of media and software on the internet. If you have $19.95 to spend, you can buy eDonkey2000 Pro, a 100% clean version. One unique feature to eDonkey2000 is the Horde system. Rather than wait in queue for the file you want, eDonkey2000 will search for peers also downloading the same file and make an instant connection. This forces a user to upload the part of the file to other users and increases the overall sources for the file on the network. The GUI is skinnable, so you can put nice decorations around the ad banner.

As I said, ED2K has 4 million users and Overnet has 3 hundred thousand users. Since Overnet is on by default in eDonkey2000, it’s safe to assume that most if not all edonkey2000 users are connected to both networks. Do the math; 3.7 million ED2K users are using a client other than eDonkey2000. Most likely eMule or Shareaza.

While ED2K is the biggest network it’s certainly not the fastest; no matter what client you use. Why is a complicated question. When you start a download, you’re instantly placed in line or queue. These queues can run into the thousands and in some ED2K clients, even higher. You just have to stay in line and wait for your turn. Once your number is up, your download starts. But your ED2K client doesn’t request the file directly; rather it requests a chunk of the file. Once you have that chunk, its back to the end of the line. Weather this system is efficient is up for debate. Gnutella for instance has different methods for putting people in queue, in some cases you can be put to the head of the line pending how big the file you want is and how much of it you already have.

eDonkey2000 isn’t free. It’s always been accompanied by ads. But as of version 1.1.2, spyware is mandatory. In the latest version WhenU is as mandatory as the ad banner. New.Net, The Search Accelerator, Party Poker and Fullcontext are also included in the installer, but you can opt out.

In September 2006 MetaMachine struck a 30 million dollar deal with the RIAA to stop developing the client and block users using eDonkey2000 from accessing the network. There's no reason left to use eDonkey2000, there are better alternatives out there.

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