eXeem was a

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

(P2P)

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...

using the BitTorrent

protocol Protocol may refer to: Sociology and politics * Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states * Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state * Etiquette, a code of personal behavior Science and technology ...

. eXeem was designed to replace the need for

centralized Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a particu ...

trackers (servers which co-ordinate the transfer of

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

across a BitTorrent

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematic ...

). It largely failed to achieve this goal, and the project was canceled and eXeem's network was shut down by the end of 2005. eXeem was written in

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

using the open source

libtorrent libtorrent is an open-source implementation of the BitTorrent protocol. It is written in and has its main library interface in C++. Its most notable features are support for Mainline DHT, IPv6, HTTP seeds and μTorrent's peer exchange. libtor ...

library for its BitTorrent functionality.

Overview

eXeem was created by Swarm Systems Inc. which is located in

Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Kitts and Nevis (), officially the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, is an island country and microstate consisting of the two islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, both located in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands chain ...

. The company employed

Andrej Preston Andrej Preston (born c. 1986), also known under the pseudonym (meaning "little elephant" in Slovene), is the founder of the former BitTorrent site Suprnova.org.Jani SeverSlovenian Pirate, ''Vest'', 25 August 2007. Accessed 2008-11-07. The Slove ...

, the founder of

Suprnova.org Suprnova.org was a Slovenia-based website that distributed BitTorrent trackers for various music and video files, computer programs and games. Started in late 2002 by Andrej Preston (known as Slonček, Slovenian for "little elephant") and for a wh ...

, as its

spokesperson A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman, is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...

and public face of eXeem. Five thousand Suprnova.org users were selected to take part in a private

beta test A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

of eXeem before the public beta was released on January 21, 2005. eXeem's developers expected to implement the following features: * On-the-fly

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can d ...

and decryption * Searching by file

hash Hash, hashes, hash mark, or hashing may refer to: Substances * Hash (food), a coarse mixture of ingredients * Hash, a nickname for hashish, a cannabis product Hash mark *Hash mark (sports), a marking on hockey rinks and gridiron football fiel ...

Quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

features * Proper

Universal Plug and Play Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the ...

-support * User comments & ratings, but only when the file has been downloaded (to prevent fake ratings) * Minimum limited upload rate (5 kB/s) to stop leechers.

Criticism of eXeem

Criticism of eXeem arose soon after it debuted and included: * eXeem's for-profit operating model, including support through advertising (much akin to Kazaa) and a public beta that included HTML ads supported by

Cydoor Cydoor is a spyware and adware first detected in 2003. Cydoor software The Cydoor software downloads advertisements from the Cydoor servers, to be displayed in the Cydoor-supported software. It is built as a program integrated into the parent a ...

, which is widely considered to be spyware.P2PNet
, retrieved 2 May 2006 Ads-free versions called ''eXeem Lite

and ''BIT eXeem'' were subsequently released, and eXeem later replaced Cydoor with WhenU from version 0.21 onward. *

Closed source Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and inte ...

code development, in contrast with the

open-source model Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

followed by the most popular BitTorrent software, on which eXeem is based. * No initial

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

versions, with no ability to allow third parties to

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

the code beyond

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

(as eXeem is closed source). * Seacay was released as a Linux Client for the eXeem network when eXeem version 0.21 was released (see screenshot, right )

Network

The eXeem network used super-peers that were used to track torrents (as ordinary BitTorrent trackers). These super-peers were also responsible for maintaining file lists, comments and ratings for part of the files in the network. When a peer that was tracking a torrent was closed or went down, a new peer was assigned to be the tracker for that particular torrent.

External links

eXLite vs eXeem Lite
nbsp;– 2005-02-07

MP3 Newswire Founded in 1998, the same year as MP3.com, MP3 Newswire is the oldest active news site devoted to digital media technology. Notable for its series of essays that chronicled the rise of digital music and the Internet’s acrimonious relationship wit ...

article
News article on Slyck
– includes partial transcript of Sloncek interview
Spanish eXeem tutorial
{{File sharing File sharing software

Overview

Criticism of eXeem

Network

See also

References

External links