File sharing is in one of the basic things of internet. If we take a deep look at the architecture of internet then we would be amazed that our browsing or surfing the internet is also a sort of sharing. It is a client / server architecture where our browsers send requests to servers and the server responds or shares the information it has with us.

There are many ways to share a file, but we can divide these networks in two basic categories.

Client-Server sharing

There are further classifications of these networks, which classify these networks as image hosts, video hosts, or web hosts, but the basic purpose is to share files. Rapidshare and Megaupload are examples of client/server model sharing. The majority of people are familiar with these file-sharing programs. The process is very simple. You can upload a file, and then you will be provided with a link, which you can send to your friends to download that file. More often, there is huge traffic on these sites and users or downloader’s have to wait a long to download files. Obviously, you can purchase memberships for unlimited downloads or uploads however, some of these memberships can cost quite a bit of money. You cannot browse files on these networks to find something according to your needs and you would have to have an exacting link for downloading a file. This type of sharing also costs a lot to owners.

Peer to Peer Sharing

Solution for this problem is peer-to-peer networks. In 2001, “Cohen” invented this protocol and now it is being used widely all over the world. The mechanism or the architecture of peer-to-peer (P2P) is entirely different from client/server model. File sharing needs bandwidth in bulk and that is why the client/server model is very costly. Before the evolvement to the peer-to-peer network, no one even thought about using upload bandwidth of leeches (surfers). Cohen introduced this revolutionary file sharing concept. Large files are divided into small chunks and then delivered to users who are trying to download these files. The process does not stop here; these downloading users upload that piece of files, which they have been downloaded through an upload utility to other users who are downloading the same file. As a result, there will not be any burden on hosting server. All loads are being transferred to users. Imagine if there are more users downloading than they are uploading. This shows just how popular that file is and it will download quicker due to its popularity and the innovative peer-to-peer sharing model. Peer to peer file sharing make it possible to share very large files without any cost. It has been recorded that there were more than 40 Million downloads with a P2P network client BitTorrent by 2006.

You can install any bittorrent client to share or download torrent (Sharing files are called torrents) of your choice. You can browse million torrents available on sites by categories. Some popular bittorrent clients are BitTorrent, BitLord, Microtorrent, Azeures, eMule, and many more.