The Similarity-Enhanced Transfer was developed to help speed up the transfer process between nodes in the file sharing network. The way it works, is it looks for chunks of data that are exact or an almost exact copy of what the client application is looking for. This technique is known as hand printing and it is basically looking for the data the file needs to be completed. By looking for and downloading similar chunks, you can actually improve the download time by 71%. The lower the SET filter is set, the more similar pieces it can find and therefore the number of connections that can be made. This is important as while you are downloading a file, you can suffer lags in between connection while the client application is looking for exact matches. By lowering the SET limit, you can then close these soft spots or lagging download points drastically which if figure out over the length of the entire download, you can increase the download time by up to 71%.
However, on popular data, the SET will most likely not help your download capabilities as these are limited by your ISP. However, when it comes to less popular files that have little seeds available, you can then increase this download time drastically whi will make it worth the effort.
The SET was developed by a joint effort between Professor David Andersen, Himabindu Pucha and Dr. Michael Kaminsky. After the development of this file sharing protocol, it would later be integrated into the bit torrent protocol. It is for this reason, that the bit torrent client applications are very expedient when it comes to downloading files. This also plays an important role in the development if the bit torrent protocol’s rarest first paradigm. In the rarest first technique, the client application will hunt down the rarest portions of the requested file first using the SET concept, therefore making the rarest portion, the least rarest and this will continue indefinitely until a medium is found in which all the pieces of data have the same availability. Or until you finish downloading the file!
There are many other concepts that have been envisioned into the development of the bit torrent protocol to help with its popularity and speed. Regardless of the underlying technology involved, the bit torrent protocol is now considered to be the most popular file sharing protocol in the world. Users can be found in any country that has a public internet access. Yes, there are still some in which the citizens do not have sufficient, or any internet access at all. Some of these reasons for the lacking can be as simple as cost, while others may be due to government constraints and control on its people. None the less, the bit torrent network is still considered to be the largest community on the web and in the world to date.
Popularity: 23% [?]
