FastTrack

One of the leaders in the peer to peer file sharing industry is FastTrack. FastTrack is a peer to peer file sharing protocol that has been successfully implemented into many of the popular peer to peer file hsaring networks that we all know of today. If you have ever use Kazaa, Grokster, oMesh or even Morpheus, then you have been on the FastTrack peer to peer file sharing network. Although all of these are closed networks, in which a Morpheus user cannot download from an iMesh user, it is still the same protocol.

Prior to the days of the grand Napster inquisition and the peer to peer file sharing monopoly known as bit torrent, FastTrack was the leader. The main use of the FastTrack is for the sharing of MP3s as this is what it was developed for, but that does not mean it is limited to it. However, Morpheus was banished from using the FastTrack network, probably due to the sharing of files that were not allowed.

Back in 2003, FastTrack was the most popular peer to peer file sharing protocol oin the world and at the time had well over 2.4 million clients around the world. One of the most popular advantages of this file sharing protocol, is that if you interrupt the download, it can then resume where you left off rather than loosing the entire block of data that you were downloading when the interruption occurred.

FastTrack was also utilized by Napster under the Napster FastTrack server.

FastTrack was developed in Sweden by Niklas Zennström who also developed the file sharing website and client side application known as Kazaa. With the help of Jaan Tallinn, the FastTrack protocol started to take a stronghold in the peer to peer file sharing protocol industry. Jaan Tallinn would then latter develop the ever popular Skype network and application. FastTrack was originally introduced back in 2001 only a couple of months before Napster was shut down for allowing the sharing of copyrighted data.

Although at the beginning, there were many networks running on the FastTrack peer to peer file sharing protocol, today only three networks remain. FastTrack is still utilized as part of the Kazaa, Grokster and iMesh networks as well as their variants.

It was FastTrack that introduced the concept of super nodes, or “some nodes are more than equal” as a means to ensure that a bottle neck cannot occur. After Napster was shut down, and many Napster refugees then transferred to other networks, many networks began to bottle neck and it was the FastTrack protocol that would eventually be added into the coding of the clients.

FastTrack offers many of the popular features that are available in the other peer to peer file sharing networks including search capabilities as well as giving hash keys for files to assist with the downloads.

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