Phuzzy4242 wrote:Sadly, there are fewer and fewer people using eMule, and fewer servers too. There used to routinely be 120,000 users - or more - on some servers but I haven't seen that for a long time, and probably a lot more porn than useful stuff too. I see a time not too far away when eMule will only have a few die-hards and then go away entirely. It's a shame because it's been a prime place to easily find films, books, and music without a lot of effort for a loooooong time.
What really contributed to the downward slide was the increase in file size with HD and bluray. Some of the rips I've posted are
already too big for people who get less than 50 kbps on eMule. Full blurays go up to 50 GB - and 4K blurays up to twice that, 100 GB. In theory you ought to be able to get BitTorrent speeds but I've rarely seen it. I remember getting a few blurays back in the early days over eMule and it took a
while. BT doesn't have the staying power but if you get content while it's still being seeded the downloads are very fast. Or you could go on Usenet, or a site that posts direct links.
Too many people, myself included, are stuck with copper instead of fiber. That limits your upload speed severely. I get a total of 1.4 Mbps, split however many ways among the uploaders. If every single eMule user had fiberoptic line speed uploads the network as a whole would be blazing fast. Trading full 4K blurays and rips would be both practical and quick. We may see something like it again, probably with complete decentralization and powerful encryption features, especially if the entertainment industry and its toadies launch a big enough crackdown on existing share methods. Only time will tell.