A new beta version of the famous bittorrent client uTorrent has been released to the public yesterday. The biggest change should be full Windows Vista support but the changelog reports dozens of new features, changes and fixes for the new beta. I don’t want to list all of the changes that have been made, just take a look for yourself if you are interested. I do know that some of you will not use uTorrent anymore because of its affiliation with Bittorent, this is understandable and this post is mainly for those users who simply do not care about it or think it is not a big deal (yet).

Categories: Operating Systems, P2p, Tools, Windows

Using p2p networks such as Emule or Bittorrent to download mp3 files is not as dangerous as the Music Industry tries to make it appear but there is still the chance that you might face consequences if you share copyrighted music. A much easier and safer way would be to simply use Google to find and download the music that you like. The Music Industry somehow does not seem to care that Google indexes more copyrighted mp3 files than the total number that is available on all p2p networks combined.

Categories: P2p, The Web

Pando is a free online service that utilizes p2p technology to share large encrypted files by email and instant messenger. The sender selects files and folders that he wants to share. Those files are immediately uploaded to the Pando server where they are stored in encrypted form. The recipient receives an email that contains a small attachment which starts the download process when executed. Data will be send from the Pando server and other users who are currently online.

Categories: Email, Online Services

A new kind of Trojan was discovered recently which targets only Japanese file-sharers. When executed the Trojan displays manga-like images with a reminder which differs depending on which image is displayed. The text however looks similar and always asks the user to stop using P2P networks. One of the messages for instance reads “”Ah, I see you are using P2P again…if you don’t stop in 0.5 seconds, I’m going to kill you.” Talk about a threat boy, jeeze.”

Categories: P2p, Security

Babelgum and Joost are two services that try to deliver tv content to your computer using peer to peer technology. Both services seem to have the same aim to make the transition from watching shows on your television to watching shows on the internet as fluent as possible. There is no configuration involved, all that is needed is the Bablegum or Joost client and a broadband connection to the internet.

Categories: Cool, Entertainment, The Web

There has been a lot of controversy about the recent acquisition of uTorrent by Bram Cohen, the creator of the Bittorent protocol. Most users seem to be disturbed about the partnership between Bittorrent and the MPAA which started in fall 2005 with the agreement that illegal searches would be removed from its own Bittorrent search engine. The fear that the cooperation will affect the development of the popular uTorrent client seems to grow with every passing day.

Categories: P2p, Tools

Why would you need another program to block IP addresses if you already have a firewall ? A good question that can be answered easily. Peer Guardian uses a database of bad IP addresses and blocks them automatically as soon as the IP is added to the database of blocklist.org. A single user would have to know that a new IP (range) poses a thread and add it manually to his firewall.

Categories: P2p, Security

We all knew and heard about the common method to upload fake torrents into the torrent system to punish downloaders of copyrighted media files. The Torrentfreak blog reports that some torrent admins were able to identify some of the IP ranges that spread fake torrents and probably also the company that is behind it. The easiest way to cope with the situation would be to block the IP ranges either in your firewall or in a utility such as Peer Guardian. Below are the information for Peer Guardian 2, simply use the IP ranges if you want to block the IPs in your firewall.

Categories: Advice, P2p

You have some friends or business partners that you want to share data with but have no website with enough space and don’t want to use p2p as well ? One simple way to share files of any size is to use the HTTP File Server which emulates a basic file server on your home computer. The server can be run in public or private mode and it is normally a very good idea to run it in private mode.

Categories: Operating Systems, P2p, Tools, Windows