MediaGet FileSharing Client: It’s Got the Skills, It’s Got the Look

November 30, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

Ever since the dawn of peer-to-peer there have been few clients that managed to set themselves apart from the multitude of options, such as uTorrent, BitTorrent, Azureus – firstly created for Linux users, later becoming Vuze, Limewire and so on.Much work has been put into pushing this amazing technology forward, creating both a professional and pleasant environment.

The fast-paced evolution definitely pushed the developers’ limits, creating marvel clients with multi-operational features, trying (and often succeeding) to meet the ever growing demands of their users, and of the BitTorrent community in general. Such a marvel is MediaGet, a quick-grower that managed to reach over 40 million installations (and going) ever since its launch in 2010.

From the site:

Today we are giving to everyone an opportunity to check our client out and make money out of that. Our goal was to make the work with the Torrent sites easier for the «dummies». Everyone knows, that other clients can be hard nuts to crack for the regular user. To negotiate all these difficulties we have developed an all-in-one Downloader, which installs our client and begins downloading of the chosen file automatically. If the Torrent file can’t be downloaded from the website, an appropriate file will be found by MediaGet and downloaded as well. So we are offering to give your users another opportunity to download files. Our client is not only a Torrent client, it is also a Download manager. So the users can get any type of files from your site in one click, by the way bringing money to you.

Designed in northern Eurasia, specifically in the Russian Federation, by an international team of file-sharing enthusiasts, MediaGet enters the community with a big-bang by launching an eye-candy software that meets even the highest of demands.

Its features are overwhelming, even to the skeptical. With a very smooth interface, it combines usefulness with simplicity. At first install, you will notice that there are 4 tabs, each embedded with powerful features. The “Catalogue” tab offers links to the latest movies, games, etc. Click the “Search” button underneath the preview image and you’ll be directed to the download links; it’s that easy. You will also find the comment section useful, as it offers feedback on the quality of the torrent. The search engine is simply amazing. Instead of web surfing for whatever you feel like downloading, you can simply do it from within the client.

The “Advanced Search” is where things get really interesting. Click on the little “wheel” and the “Settings” window opens, offering the possibility to edit the tracker list used by the search engine (rutracker.org, mininova.org, tfile.ru, monova.org, fenopy.eu, rutor.org, isohunt.com, kat.ph, bitreactor.to). In addition, you can set the download and upload speed, choose your type of connection, security, and even access the Android interface from which you can remotely control your downloads. MediaGet also integrates uTorrent (can import uTorrent’s seeding list – saving time and effort of manually transferring the files from one client to another), IE and Mozilla Firefox.

The imported list of uTorrent

We should mention that in order to download anonymously you need to purchase a voucher from faceless.me for either 30 days ($9.95) or 90 days ($19.95).

The next tab “Transfers” offers a view on the current downloads. The lower case shows stats of the downloaded files, transfer speed, and so on.

And here comes my favorite part. The “Media Player”, a highlight feature of this ingenious piece of software, can make even uTorrent’s developers just a bit jealous. Its multi-format can play most of today’s video formats and tunes. In the right side of the player you can build a playlist of your favorite movies or songs.

Last but not least, the “Media Library” tab helps you manage and easily access your collection.

All in all, MediaGet can be called a truly 21st century BitTorrent client. It is available for both Windows and Mac users and can be downloaded here.

Enjoy!

Tags: file sharing applications, file-sharing, p2p, p2p clients, p2p technology

Bittorrent Certified TV Coming Up Soon

September 2, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

Bittorrent Inc. has been very prolific this year especially in terms of collaborations – here comes another one from the leading filesharing platform in the world – a partnership with Vestel to launch the first Bittorrent certified smart TV. The companies announced the launching recently at the IFA show in Berlin.

With this device users will be able to download, share and play files directly to and from their digital TV.

“Consumers want all types of personal media and internet content in their living rooms and the TV remains the most desired device for consuming this digital media, regardless of source,” said Hakan Kutlu, deputy general manager of marketing at Vestel.

“Bittorrent certification helps our TV line meet this consumer demand and ensures that Vestel products remain at the forefront of technology innovation and adoption.”

Under this collaboration Vestel is allowed to use the Bittorrent protocol for downloading, transcoding, sharing and file-shifting, which simplifies a great deal the way files will be found, downloaded, and played on any certified device.

While Bittorrent’s huge user database (including over 100 million users), is based on PC users, in the following years this could change, as multiple Bittorrent certified tools like TVs, Blu-ray and DVD players, media extenders, NAS devices, are expected to come into production in the near future.

Maybe this type of business will give the rigid industry a push into adopting a different approach to the way they perceive consumers and their business model altogether.

Tags: BitTorrent, file-sharing, p2p technology

Innovative, P2P Based, Decentralised System for Dissident Journalists – SPARKD

May 5, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

The new project entered Mozilla’s MoJo contest this week under the name of SPARKD. Its platform is based on p2p video streaming and comes with the promise of a new age of anti-censorship tool and more.

As the internet consumption habits had increasingly grown in the past decade, social networks like Facebook and Twitter brought sharing and communication to a whole new level. Started by several p2p enthusiasts at VODO, this project’s purpose is to facilitate citizen journalists to stream for millions, anonymously and virtually invulnerable to censorship.

Mozilla’s MoJo contest – created to encourage new approaches to news gathering and reporting – has opened its arms and signed SPARKD on the list. The project’s goal is to be awarded fellowship with one of the participating news organizations which include the BBC and Al Jazeera.

Streaming with this program is accessible and can be done from whatever device you own. Its technology is based on peer-to-peer protocol, meaning that once the information is out there it stays there.

Jamie King, the founder of project VODO – which stands for “voluntary donations” and was inspired from the experience he gained from releasing together with his partner their own works for free online – and director of “Steal this film”, said that the new project can easily become an extension tool for every journalist.

“It’s clear that public distribution of certain kinds of key information has the potential to contribute to social change. Look at the role of citizen journalists in Egypt, and how this fed through to public awareness of the situation, strengthening the local movement. Or look at Wikileaks, and its recent role in revealing the oil motives behind the invasion of Iraq. That should make it harder, I hope, to sell war to the public in the future. But in both cases, the distribution infrastructure is somewhat shaky, and liable to attack,” King told TorrentFreak.

Various methods of censorship are applied to free media like Al Jazeera or Wikileaks.“This is why SPARKD, based on a properly decentralized, P2P distribution with BitTorrent and the developmental Swift protocol at its core, can be useful. With peers bearing the responsibility of distribution, and trackerless swarms as the main infrastructure, it’s a much harder channel to censor or attack,” King says.

“P2P is perhaps the most pure realisation of John Gilmore’s statement that ‘The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.’ Nowhere right now is it more important to demonstrate this practically than with citizen journalism,” he adds.

Security is the main concern. Therefore, proxies will be placed between the source and the rest of the world. Moreover, everyone is invited to pitch in by contacting the SPARKD team.

“The idea is to use a proxy — probably one that the user can select, we have a couple of partners we could work with — to protect the initial uploader as they upload over HTTP. We can arrange it so that we don’t actually know the details of the uploader, so there’d be no point people coming after us to find out who it was,” King told TorrentFreak.

“If you’re a UI designer, we need you. If you are a P2P-savvy programmer, we need you. If you have an interest in merging social conversation with live video, we want you. We can just about make this happen by ourselves, but this isn’t the point. It’s always great to discover new people to work with,” King says.

A beta version will be released to the public whether SPARKD wins or not the Mozilla contest.

Although SPARKD is clearly designed for political and informational purposes, everyone will have access to the program and hopefully will establish new levels of understanding free-speech and the freedom of information.

Here’s some technical info about Sparkd from the contest website.

HOW IT WORKS

SPARKD makes use of the complete flit suite of tools, as below:

1. Launch

Launch provides initial upload from a given environment or event via HTTPS, either in-browser or through an Android or iPhone app. Where necessary, data is anonymised using Tor or another available proxy.

2. Hatch

Hatch transcodes the video to WebM(2) ready for streaming/sharing and creates a swift hash for a given video file, identifying the file and making it available to peers.

3. Wire

Wire indexes the file in a moderated list displayed on the SPARKD front page. The uploader chooses the relevant index to be added to, and is prompted for thumbnail, title, date, length and other metadata. The SPARKD wire can be subscribed to by any RSS service or flit user.

SPARKD incorporates social influence tools allowing users to share items and indexes with their social graph. Amongst these are the capacity to add hashtags to a particular item such that it can be discovered thematically and linked to live conversation in social networks.

4. Birdseed

Seeding is an important part of making sure that videos stay available under high load. Birdseed allows interested parties to grab a whole Wire index, download it via swift and make it available to otherpeers. Users are able to set the amount of bandwidth they wish to make available within the flight extension, as well as manage which indexes they are seeding.

Tags: BitTorrent, file sharing service, file-sharing, p2p, p2p technology, VODO

uTorrent 3.0 is Here to Make a Good Impression

February 15, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

The app comes forward with zero-config web control, streaming and one-click file sharing

uTorrent 3.0 is now stable enough to be installed on any computer. This new gadget pushes the BitTorrent protocol to the next level.
Maybe the most impressive feature is the integration of a web browser called Project Falcon.

But this is only the beginning. Video and music streaming is possible, not to mention the all-new rating system (Pulse). Last but not least, the new drag-and-drop sharing box makes your life easier.

Music and video streaming:

It’s as easy as it gets:

After the torrent is ready, just push Play and choose your media player. The streaming works for both videos (TV Shows, movies, trailers, etc.) and music (mp3 files, albums – .flac files are yet to be added, hopefully) files.

Rating

A new button has been added. You can rate the selected .torrent file and grant it some stars. Commenting is also possible. This could be a useful method to provide some kind of feedback to the other users regarding the file in subject. However, if you change your mind about what you wrote or rated, too bad (the process is irreversible). Hopefully, indexes like Pirate Bay or IsoHunt will integrate the Pulse rating to their websites.

File sharing

On the bottom left of your client there’s a “Drop files to share” box. It does exactly what it says. Just drop your file/s or folder/s into the designated area, enter a message (if you wish) and share. uTorrent automatically generates a TinyUrl link that you can share with anyone. If you think that’s something amazing, get a load of this: TinyUrl redirects your friend to the uTorrent download link and provides the .torrent file of your sharing. This feature uses Web Seeds – meaning the torrent is also seeded – via HTTP – on uTorrent’s dedicated servers.

Webbing

The uTorrent web control is indeed a core feature. Go to Options>Preferences>Web and provide a username and a password. Then access http://web.utorrent.com (or load your uTorrent Android Remote) and type-in the username and password you’ve chosen.

Worried about security ? No need because it’s very impressive. Everything you do is encrypted with a derived from your password key. The service is free (for now) and it mimics almost every feature of your client.

So what are you waiting for ? Get uTorrent 3.0.

Tags: BitTorrent, file sharing applications, file-sharing, p2p, p2p technology

Set Your Own Free and Secure P2P File Sharing Network with PirateBox

February 1, 2011 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

PirateBox is becoming quite popular – a peer-to-peer file sharing tool that uses free and Open Source software to turn any space into a free wireless file sharing network. Basically, it allows you to create a free and anonymous wireless network everywhere you go.

Its creator, David Darts, a New York University professor, was apparently motivated by a keen passion for freedom of information.

Since the design and software are all Free Art Licensed, anyone can freely distribute and make changes to his design.

The looks: PirateBox appears like a small container (a lunch box with a pirate symbol) equipped with a wireless router, a lightweight Linux server, and, of course, a battery.

The functionality: it’s very easy to use – just set the device down, turn it on, wait for a few seconds the boot process to complete and there you go – now you can enjoy the benefits of a wireless and anonymous file sharing network.

For a better understanding of how PirateBox works watch the video below (and more info here):