It's been 20 years since Bram Cohen published one of the most famous file-sharing protocols on the internet. “My new application, BitTorrent, works fine. You can try it here,” the developer wrote on a Yahoo! message board. Back then, in July 2001, the world was very different . Streaming services did not exist, dial-up access to the network reigned, and ASDL was taking its first steps.
BitTorrent offered a new and efficient way to share huge files. Instead of resorting to direct downloading, through centralized servers, this protocol joined a swarm (swarm) of thousands of users in which their computers uploaded and downloaded parts of the shared files. This type of protocol, from the P2P family, is known as decentralized, because it does not go through any server.
However, at the dawn of BitTorrent, other file sharing mechanisms also existed – and still work – on the network. One of them was eDonkey 2000 whose most popular client was eMule , which had a search engine to locate the files and allowed them to be classified based on different parameters.
Credit: TorrentFreak
The success and challenges of BitTorrent
BitTorrent, unlike other exchange networks, was faster, but did not have a built-in search engine , so it had to be backed up by websites that hosted the .torrent files containing the identifiers required to start downloads. This, instead of being a disadvantage, turned in favor of the protocol in its early years, since they helped popularize the content, which was often indexed by a young Google.
That is how pages such as Bytemonsoon.com, Donkax.com and the popular The Pirate Bay emerged, as reported by TorrentFreak. However, the possibility of sharing any type of content (most of it pirated), made it criminalized. Cohen, the creator of the protocol, tried to stay away from these controversies and in 2004 founded his own company BitTorrent Inc, to focus on developing the protocol.
In order to get rid of the concept of illegality, BitTorrent Inc., in partnership with a Hollywood studio, launched its own video page. But the project lasted only a year and closed its doors. Later, he launched BitTorrent Now, a website that helps artists promote their content. Surprisingly, the portal still works.
But not all were difficult steps for the company. In 2006 he bought the uTorrent client developed by Ludvig Strigeus. This move was one of the best of the company, since to date it is still the most popular torrent download client in the world, with versions for Mac, Linux, Android, Windows and web.
The Tron era and the future
BitTorrent marked a before and after in the way of sharing files on the network, but the income only served to keep the project afloat and made it difficult to develop new ones. In 2018 it was bought by the Tron Foundation and a month later Cohen left the company.
Tron launched the BitTorrent (BTT) token, which can be used by users to pay for faster download speeds. Cohen, for his part, ventured into the world of cryptocurrencies . It became one of the biggest promoters of “Chia”, one of the cryptocurrencies that seeks to be friendly with the environment, although it began to destroy hard drives.
During these 20 years, a large number of companies have used BitTorrent. These include Twitter, Facebook, Google, and many organizations behind Linux distributions. However, the popularity of this protocol has decreased in favor of streaming platforms and direct downloading.
