eDonkey2000 Nearly Double the Size of FastTrack

[steeldogg]

eDonkey2000 Nearly Double the Size of FastTrack
June 2, 2005
Thomas Mennecke

The dismal state of affairs in the FastTrack community continue to erode the population of this network. Not since July of 2002 has FastTrack seen its population below 2 million users. Specifically, it has managed to stay below 2 million users since the Memorial Day weekend. One may argue there was simply not as many users online, however rivals networks eDonkey2000 and Gnutella continue to surge ahead.

For the latter portion of 2004 and early 2005, FastTrack's waning population stabilized at approximately 2.45 million users. In fact for a while in early 2005, FastTrack's degradation appeared to have been arrested. In March of 2005, FastTrack's average population was 2.4 million users. In April of 2005, it surged to an average of 2.7 million users. However, this respite would prove temporary as its decline continued in May (average of 2.5 million users.)

There are three key reasons for the rapid decline of the FastTrack network. Many remember FastTrack during its glory days when Morpheus was the P2P application to use. While today having these two concepts in the same sentence is as foreign as the moons of Endor, the FastTrack network was nevertheless a powerful method for sharing copious amounts of information.

The first, and perhaps foremost reason FastTrack has seen its population dissipate is the inclusion of spyware and adware in the Kazaa Media Desktop and Grokster clients. As time as progressed, more netizens have become aware of these intrusions and the significant dangers they present to their identity and security. Grokster is particularly guilty of this third party menace, and its installation nearly cripples one's machine.

Kazaa Media Desktop installs marginally fewer instances of spyware and adware. However most former users note computer performance degrades once this application is installed.

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[mumpi07]

Thx for the info, but it is dated June 2, 2005

 

[steeldogg]

sorry man... didn't actually pay attention to the date by mistake...
although i feel it is still relevant to the issue... or maybe its not...
If not - please reply with more latest statistics...
Thanks.

 

[cateye]

I was going to say, it better be better than Kazaa by now ;-). Not sure if it will be better than Kazaa at it's peak since everyone had Kazaa installed and was sharing junk accidentally, but AFAIK Fasttrack is empty now.

 

[steeldogg]

I was going to say, it better be better than Kazaa by now ;-). Not sure if it will be better than Kazaa at it's peak since everyone had Kazaa installed and was sharing junk accidentally, but AFAIK Fasttrack is empty now.

well i guess you're right, but isn't it better that not everybody sharing junk like they did in fasttrack... then edonkey is the place for the real things... and let them fasttrack loyals keep sharing junk... hehe

 

[cateye]

eD2k has the same amount of junk, maybe more. eMule however, and it's mods, have made it much easier to avoid -- Stuff like fakes.dat, name cleaning, a list of alternate names, and a comment system.

I made a mistake in saying Fasttrack is empty now. I'm not sure that it is, I simply don't use it. Last I used it was probably in giFT.sf.net (another dead P2P program, outdated by sharaza and limewire). It was quickly dying at the time though, and other P2P gained prominence, so I'd assume only the most casual of P2P users would still have Kazaa.