P2P File Sharing

What is file sharing?

According to Wikipedia, “File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images, & video), documents, or electronic books.” File sharing allows a number of people to use the same file or file by some combination of being able to read or view it, write to or modify it, copy it, or print it. When referring to file sharing it is usually referred to as sharing through a network 

What is P2P File sharing?

The term P2P refers to peer to peer networking and file sharing. P2P file sharing is usually done through software that connects in to a peer-to-peer network to search for shared files on the computers of other users connected to the network. Files can then be downloaded directly from other users on the network.

What are some examples of P2P file sharing?

According to the article “File sharing joins the mainstream” by Chris Nuttall, BitTorrent is an example of P2P file sharing. He states in his article “the beauty of BitTorrent is in the way it breaks up a large file into pieces and spreads these around users who download them and upload them to others at the same time.” Sites such as Kazaa and LImeware are also example of P2P file sharing.