File Sharing World Welcomes Gygan

April 30, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

PC World reveals one of the most interesting newcomers on the file-sharing scene dominated by p2p services/torrent sites, hosting services like RapidShare and MegaUpload, or, the older attraction which keeps reinventing itself under different newer services – Usenet.

Called Gygan, the new service runs on a standalone client seen by the guys at PC World as a more efficient solution in terms of user-friendliness and convenience than aforementioned services (we haven’t tested the service yet). It works similarly to RapidShare, with users uploading files to their specific service, which is stored in a private sharing network on Usenet. However, do not take Gygan for peer-to-peer as it enables indirect access to Usenet through their own servers which translates as high-speed downloads and uploads.

“The first 1GB of downloads a month (4GB for the first month) is included for free users, but if you want more you’ll have to buy a monthly package for $.33-$.50 a GB. On the other hand, unlimited uploads are free for everyone–and you can even make money through Gygan’s Reward Program if enough people download your files”.

Gygan provides users with the possibility of both downloading via URL (as with RapidShare) and from a .gyg file (pretty similar to a .torrent file).The in-client search is one of the service’s best features as it saves you precious time looking for what you want; another cool feature would be the private sharing one – files shared exclusively through URL and which don’t appear in search results.

Looking forward to see how Gygan will evolve as a file sharing service (constantly gaining in popularity) we leave you to check out the prices currently proposed by the service:

“This software is free up to 1GB of monthly downloads. Pricing plans include $5 a month for 10GB, $10 a month for 25GB, and $25 a month for 75GB. The price quoted here is for 10GB a month.”

Tags: client search, file sharing service, file sharing sites, file-sharing, gyg, MegaUpload, p2p services, RapidShare, torrent sites

Popular File Sharing Sites in Bulgaria Targeted by Police

April 30, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues

As we’ve pointed out in previous posts, anti-piracy measures aggressively imposed in countries like UK, France, Italy and U.S., are starting to take a more severe approach in East European countries as well. Earlier this month we reported the founding of the Pirate Party in Bulgaria – now the country’s law enforcement agencies are urging the shutdown of the most popular torrent tracker websites.

According to Yavor Kolev, the head of the cybercrime unit at the ministry’s chief directorate for combating organised crime CDCOC, the main targets they will be focusing on are founders of file sharing sites like Zamunda and Arena and not (necessarily) members of such sites.

“We are shutting down Zamunda and Arena – they are servers that supply pirated movies and music and siphon money from users through text messages. Users will not be arrested,” said Kolev. He also wanted to highlight that owners of the Zamunda and Arena trackers were both foreigners, and that the two trackers make a lot of money, about 300 000 leva (over $200000) per month.

(via SofiaEcho)

Tags: anti-piracy, chief directorate, cybercrime unit, east european countries, file-sharing, legal, pirate party, torrent tracker, zamunda

Spotify Adds New Social & Sharing Features

April 28, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games

Spotify seems determined to turn into a worthy rival for iTunes. While many still wait for its launching in the U.S., the Swedish online music service has added new features meant to increase its popularity dramatically – integration with Facebook and Twitter.

The update will allow users to manage their music online and share their preferences with friends much easier.

One of the most notable new feature is Library (which makes possible better import features to help you integrate your music with Spotify) but other features seem just as interesting: transfer music wirelessly, star/favorite tracks in Spotify, improved management with the addtion of subfolders for starred items.

In a recent interview Spotify founder Daniel Ek underlined the direction the service wants to take “We want to move people from the ownership model to the access model.”

“We know that this is a huge shift. People are used to owning music – but more and more people are becoming comfortable with accessing music and services in the cloud,” he added.

Tags: addtion, digital music, Facebook, import features, ownership model, p2p, Spotify, transfer music, worthy rival

Visual Studio 2010 Leaks to Torrent Websites

April 28, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

It seems that Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010, was worth the wait for developers as it comes with significant upgrading offering great improvements in terms of functionality and its handling of ASP.NET, C#, C++ and VB.

Various editions of pre-activated Visual Studio 2010 have been recently released, with integrated product key to MSDN subscribers (who can install and use them directly without needing any additional activation or registration).

What does that mean on the BitTorrent scene? That leaking to file sharing websites was to be expected. Various torrent sites have already made the product available as free download and what will probably excite downloaders the most is that once installed the program can be run straight away.

DOWNLOAD VISUAL STUDIO 2010 (via Kickasstorrents)

Tags: file-sharing, free downloads, functionality, improvements, leaks, p2p, torrent sites, torrents, visual studio

Scientists Launch Their Own File Sharing Site

April 28, 2010 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

At a time when some high-placed dumbheads still fail to see or admit the huge leap BitTorrent has caused in so many ways, others prove (as if it was necessary) that is the man who actually makes the difference most of the times when it comes to placing something in one category or another, good or bad.

A team of researchers at the University of California Davis have decided to give BitTorrent a much fruitful use than usually (downloading movies and music that is) and launch a tracker site called BioTorrents dedicated entirely to sharing and publishing scientific material.

“The transfer of scientific data has emerged as a significant challenge, as datasets continue to grow in size and demand for open access sharing increases. Current methods for file transfer do not scale well for large files and can cause long transfer times,” reads an abstract describing the site. “In this study we present BioTorrents, a website that allows open access sharing of scientific data and uses the popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing technology. BioTorrents allows files to be transferred rapidly due to the sharing of bandwidth across multiple institutions and provides more reliable file transfers due to the built-in error checking of the file sharing technology.”

What prompted the researchers to this decision was the disadvantage HTTP and FTP services presents by allowing a single source of the data, plus the large amounts of bandwidth required to make “adequate” download speeds possible. Apart from this, in case the single server that host the data is down, the data can be easily lost.

“If BitTorrent technology was implemented for these datasets then the data supplier would benefit from decreased bandwidth use, while researchers downloading the data, especially those not on the same continent as the data supplier, enjoy faster transfer times,” explained the founders of BioTorrent hoping at the same time to inspire other fellow colleagues and institution to follow their example and adopt BitTorrent in their work.

“This form of data publishing allows open and rapid access to information that would expedite science, especially for time-sensitive events such as the recent outbreaks of influenza H1N1[19] or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)[20],” goes on the explanation. “No matter what the circumstance, BioTorrents provides a useful resource for advancing the sharing of open scientific information.”

Probably, once they give BioTorrent a try many researchers will wonder how come they haven’t thought of this before.

Currently, the site lists 663 registered users, 27 torrents, 95 peers, 86s seeders, seeder/leecher ratio (%) 956.

Tags: biotorrent, BitTorrent, downloading movies, file sharing sites, file-sharing, ftp services, p2p, peer to peer file sharing, sharing technology, university of california davis