vidman49 wrote:I am trying to understand "friending." Most of the posts on friending other than this thread are at least 5 years old so I imagine that a lot of the information is out of date as programs change. When I notice someone whose name I recognize from this site downloading one of the movies I have uploaded, I have been right-clicking and friending them, such as Phuzzy who I see is downloading Iphigenia.
I am assuming that this helps their download share time or something like that? What exactly does this do and how can I improve on this feature. Your talk of "mods" and "nicks" is over my head.
And I appreciate the friend slot!
Normally, eMule gives each person in the queue about 9.2 MB at a time and then switches to the next person in line. The one who just got a chunk goes to the end of the line and has to wait his turn again. When you give someone a friend slot, it doesn't switch to the next person in line at 9.2 MB, it keeps sending to your friend (for example, FLL and Mimzy have each gotten over 100 MB so far of l'annee in one chunk). Also, friends' "points" are boosted a LOT so they move to the front of the line again much faster. Regular eMule only lets you give one (1) friend slot at a time. That means if you have 5 FLM friends trying to download some files, you can only give one of them the boost. If you give a different one the friend slot, the first no longer has it and is back to 9.2 MB chunks and normal movement through your queue.
Mods are modified versions of eMule such as ScarAngel, MorphXT, eMule Plus, etc. I've tried 6 or 7 mods but I settled on MorphXT because it's got some features I like, such as being able to give more than one friend slot at a time, assigning a percent of your available bandwidth to friend slots, "funny nicks", and a few other features, plus it's been stable and I haven't seen any suspicious behavior out of it. I'm not "pushing" any one mod, just commenting on what works for me.
Installing a different mod is usually very easy. 1) shut down eMule; 2) copy the entire eMule folder to a different name (e.g. "Morph"); 3) download the mod you want to try in ZIP form; 4) extract ONLY the eMule.exe file to the new folder you just created; 5) create a new startup icon for this version; 6) read the release notes. I do it this way so I don't lose any of my settings or points and can go right back to the prior eMule if I want since it hasn't been changed in any way.
Nicks are just nicknames - "User Name" in eMule's General Options menu. We encourage people to put [FLM] in their nick so other FLM people can recognize you and help you out by giving you a friend slot. Mine is "Phuzzy4242 [FLM]". Some mods see the [FLM] part of a nick and can automatically give you a friend slot. I agree with FLL that it tends to block out everyone but people with that tag and can be easily spoofed, so I don't use one of those mods.
MorphXT's "funny nicks" are ... funny. Many (probably most) eMule users don't bother to change their user names, so you have a huge list of users named "
http://emule-project.net". I tend to give them much lower consideration than people who
do bother to create a nickname because it tells me they're either hit-and-run takers or noobs. Morph makes up a nickname for the nicks that weren't changed from default so the user can be identified. Right now I see a "Barbarious Sock Puppet", a "Mutated Smurf", and a "Stinky Guinea Pig" in my queue.
