Private P2P File Sharing Gets Better: Grouper

Peer-to-peer file sharing has been a hot topic on all well-known technology channels on the Web during the last couple of years, with a surge in the last couple of weeks.

Take the article The Shadow Internet in the January 2005 issue of Wired Online, for example: it describes in great detail through which secured distribution mechanism games and movies are bootlegged before they are officially released.

The need for video footage of the Indian Ocean tsunami--mostly satiated by heavy distribution of .torrent files--is just one example of the catalysts triggering increased interest during the last month.

 

 

Today, over 20% of the programs listed in the Download Top 50 of Download.Com, a popular download site for Windows shareware and freeware, is related to file sharing.

During last year several P2P file sharing tools have arisen with a different, somewhat sophisticated twist to it.

Among those tools is Grouper, a free, beautifully designed private media sharing program developed under the guidance of ex-AOL executives and Spinner.com founders Josh Felser and Dave Samuel.

Grouper was covered by Robin Good on this site when it was first launched; this week I update that review to reflect Grouper's current capabilities. As Robin pointed out in the original review Grouper is free of any type of adware and spyware.

This time I rewrote almost the entire review from scratch after testing the most recent version hands-on.

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I highly recommend that you read the revised review, including pros, cons and suggestions for further reading.