Corporate America, not exactly known for its tolerance towards losing out on a potential buck or two, has declared war on these “pirating” programs by blaming dropping sales figures on online sharing activities then suing individual users.   Despite the risk of one day standing in front of the gavel, or picking up a trojan or two, PC users still continue to defy The Man and share all their files in an orgy of media swapping.  P2P is fast becoming the new World Wide Web, most applications go so far as to integrate instant messaging and web page browsing directly into their programs, creating a total online experience via one application.

Server based. EDonkey2000 is another file sharing app, much along the same vein as Kazaa.  The difference between eDonkey2000 and other such programs is the way information regarding available files is distributed amongst users.  EDonkey requires a connection to an available server before searches can be performed, which hint at a throwback to the days of mainframe computers (complete with their associated problems).  On paper, this system shouldn’t work en masse, yet somehow it does.

Installation contains all the usual suspects for ad-supported software – search facilities, shopping “channels”, et cetera et cetera.  You are given the unusual option of not installing these extras, but without them, P2P would shrivel up and disappear.

Nice interface. The graphical interface of eDonkey2000 is suspiciously similar to other such P2P programs, but this cannot be classed as a fault – I believe that if it isn’t broke, don’t get out the hammer and start bashing things around. It is nice to see that eDonkey actually looks very smart whilst retaining functionality, a balance not easy to achieve with any PC application.  One aspect of eDonkey which is extremely surprising is the option of controlling it via a separate downloadable command line interface. It almost works well; the fundamental flaw being in the way search results are displayed.  One, there is no obvious way to display the results page by page (instead, they fly past in a dizzying parody of The Matrix character-drop effect).  Two, the results are not numbered. As you must specify your chosen file’s entry in a list of results (for example, line 5), you are left to guessing. 

Whilst on the subject of flaws, searches can only be performed when you are connected to one of the servers available.  This does take time especially when a lot of people are online, as each server can host a finite number of users.  This is where eDonkey trips up heavily.  If a lot of people are using this program, you could be in for a long wait before even initiating a search. 

Search. Once connected though, I found that search results are not limited to a set number of hits.  Literally, you can display hundreds upon hundreds of matches in one go, giving you unlimited choice (and therefore a greater chance of finding an available file to download).  Each search is tabulated so you do not lose results when conducting another search; useful if you are after many different files.  You have all the usual options of displaying in order of size, availability, name and so on.  The actual download speeds are impressive considering the archaic way of distributing file information.  On a 1Mbit broadband connection, I averaged a speed of 20k/sec on all the files I downloaded.  Obviously, speeds are dependent on other people’s connections, but I wouldn’t consistently get these rates from downloading the same files on other P2P apps.  I conducted searches on many obscure artists and files as well as popular songs, and on almost all occasions came up with dozens of hits.  However, of these hits, only a small fraction of files were available.  Most P2P programs will list hits that are “locked out” for whatever reason, but eDonkey’s results have an unusually high number of dead hits.

Unlike other applications, it invokes external programs (depending on your file associations) to play downloaded media.  I really abhor built-in players, as I (like you) have my media players set the way I like to listen/view files.  Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best. 

There are a few nice options available to play with.  One notable feature is the statistical displays regarding data traffic.  Although not useful, it does provide insight into your connection and performance.  You can change the skins to suit your taste, although one default skin comes with the normal distribution.

Some minor flaws. On its own merits, eDonkey is a nifty little file sharing application.  It is attractive, fast and functional.  On average, download speeds are consistently good with more popular titles once a connection has been established.  The laid-back mechanics of the interface could have been written by users for users, especially considering that external applications are used for playing files and that it contains performance statistics.  The command line interface deserves a lot of praise; it is a brave man who attempts to challenge a graphical interface with a text-based one.  Minor flaws stop this from working properly, and I look forward to seeing this fixed soon.

Sadly, eDonkey is flawed by relying on servers to provide file information.  This will infuriate users who want instant connection (as with other P2P alternatives), and is the sole reason why eDonkey will not reach the popularity of Kazaa or WinMX.  It does provide a previously untapped source of files to people who have exclusively used other applications in the past, but does not offer enough to permanently convert die-hard Kazaa-ians over. 

Select Overnet instead. As a side note, the flaws with eDonkey have been recognised by its authors. They even recommend that you install its brother application, Overnet, rather than eDonkey. To be fair, Overnet lends its actual tranfer technology to eDonkey; since the download speeds were the strongest feature of this application, Overnet should be excellent, and probably the subject of review in the future.

Compared with other P2P applications, eDonkey is suitably named; a beast of burden. Minor flaws make this an application to avoid.