Showing my ignorance here, but what the hell

[Debaser]

What’s the deal here?

eMule is a client right? and edonkey is a server yes?

If eMule and eDonkey are different entities, why do they have the same pissed looking Donkey emblem?

Further more, if the sever called eDonkey has bitten the dust, how come its servers are still running on eMule?
eDonkey No1 is currently online and 32million files are being shared on it.

http://www.edonkey2000.com/ appears to be down though

[ghost]

In eMule the files are shared in the so called eDonkey- or ed2k network.
And ed2k-servers are using this net.

The first client some years ago was called eDonkey which had much less features than eMule and nearly noone is using it anymore.

With Google you will find a lot of FAQ's about it i guess.

[Debaser]

Hi

Ok I need to get this clear in my head then.

In eMule the files are shared in the so called eDonkey- or ed2k network.
And ed2k-servers are using this net.

The network meaning a collection of servers inc eDonkey No1 No2 etc etc

The first client some years ago was called eDonkey which had much less features than eMule and nearly noone is using it anymore.

So that is where my confusion was obviously based.
A client called eDonkey with the same name as a server named eDonkey.

So the news about eDonkey closing was actually the client eDonkey rather than the servers of the same name.

Phew, I was a little concerned for a minute!!

Thanks for clearing that up for me ghost

[ghost]

The network meaning a collection of servers inc eDonkey No1 No2 etc etc

There are many servers you can connect to to get the file informations, when you are searching for files on the ed2k net.

But in general you shouldn't connect to servers, because they can be logged.

I litte bit more save is only to connect to the KAD network.

[Debaser]

ahh ok, I just seem to get better search results when im connected

[FLL]

I looked into this out of curiosity when I started using eMule.

The original eDonkey2000 (both client and network) was created by a company named MetaMachine. They were shut down by the RIAA in September 2005 (at the same time Frontcode, who created WinMX, was shut down).

Unlike WinMX, about four years ago both the client and the network server were independently reverse-engineered by others, so that MetaMachine no longer had sole control of either. Both the independent client software (open-source eMule and others) and the independent server software (Lugdunum) have been extended and improved over the years and are still being developed.

So when MetaMachine was shut down and agreed to pay the RIAA $30M that actually had very little effect on the ed2k network. Likewise, earlier this year when the largest servers (Razorback2) were shut down by Belgian police apparently it was trumpeted as "the eDonkey network was shut down" but other servers such as "DonkeyServer No1" just opened up elsewhere to do the same job.

The Kad network is a distributed network created by the eMule developers where each client connects to many other clients to process distributed searches. If the big servers such as the DonkeyServers get shut down again sometime the Kad network will be the only good way to search until new big servers are available.

When you start a download, eMule does its own search of a server (if connected) and the Kad network (if connected) to find users with that file. It's not critical though that that search finds everyone with the file, though, since eMule swaps sources and once you connect with a source that source will tell your client which other users it knows about with that file. So the network has been evolving to less reliance on servers.

[Debaser]

Very descriptive reply FLL, thanks very much.

That just about clears up everything

All I have to do now is work out how to connect with KAD, im sure its explained on FLM somewhere.