Tribler is an open-source software project facilitating search, streaming and sharing content using P2P technology. Over 800,000 people have used Tribler since the project started in 2005. The Tribler P2P core supports BitTorrent-compatible downloading, video on demand and live streaming. Aside from a regular desktop GUI that runs on multiple OSes, it can be installed as a browser plug-in, currently used by Wikipedia. Aditionally, it runs on a 450~MHz processor, showcasing future TV support. We continuously work on extensions and test out novel research ideas within our user base, resulting in sub-second content search, a reputation system for rewarding upload, and channels for content publishing and spam prevention. Presently, 1200 channels have been created, enabling rich multimedia communities without requiring any server.

Tribler is an open-source software project facilitating searching, streaming and sharing content using P2P technology that has been used by over 800 000 people. The Tribler P2P core supports BitTorrent-compatible downloading, video on demand and live streaming. We continuously work on extensions and test out novel research ideas within our user base, resulting in sub-second content search, a reputation system for rewarding upload, and channels for content publishing and spam prevention.

Wikipedia started a project in order to enable users to add video and audio on their Wiki pages. The technical downside of this is that its bandwidth requirements will increase manifold. BitTorrent-based peer-to-peer technology from P2P-Next (a European research project) is explored to handle this bandwidth surge. We discuss the impact on the BitTorrent piece picker and outline our ''tribe'' protocol for seamless integration of P2P into the HTML5 video and audio elements. Ongoing work on libswift which uses UDP, an enhanced transport protocol and integrated NAT/Firewall puncturing, is also described.

The BitTorrent protocol is by far the most popular protocol for offline peer-to-peer video distribution on the Internet. BitTorrent has previously been extended to support the streaming of recorded video, that is, Video-on-Demand (VoD). In this paper, we take this support for video streaming a step further by presenting extensions to BitTorrent for supporting live video streaming, which we have implemented in our BitTorrent client called Tribler. We have tested our extensions both by running simulations, and by deploying our implementation in a public trial in the Internet, using the optimal values of several parameters as found in the simulations. We analyse the performance of Tribler in systems with varying values for the percentage of peers behind a firewall or NAT, which we consider to be one of the key parameters in the performance of deployed P2P systems. Our public trial lasted 9 days, during which 4555 unique peers participated from around the globe. We found 61% of the peers to be behind a firewall, a level at which our simulations still indicate acceptable performance. Most of the peers indeed obtained good performance, with for instance a very low prebuffering time before playback starts, indicating the feasibility of our approach. The median prebuffering time we measured was 3.6 seconds, which is 3-10 times shorter than the prebuffering time measured in other deployed peer-to-peer systems.

Abstract Most current peer‐to‐peer (P2P) file‐sharing systems treat their users as anonymous, unrelated entities, and completely disregard any social relationships between them. However, social phenomena such as friendship and the existence of communities of users with similar tastes or interests may well be exploited in such systems in order to increase their usability and performance. In this paper we present a novel social‐based P2P file‐sharing paradigm that exploits social phenomena by maintaining social networks and using these in content discovery, content recommendation, and downloading. Based on this paradigm's main concepts such as taste buddies and friends, we have designed and implemented the TRIBLER P2P file‐sharing system as a set of extensions to BitTorrent. We present and discuss the design of TRIBLER, and we show evidence that TRIBLER enables fast content discovery and recommendation at a low additional overhead, and a significant improvement in download performance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Globe Distribution Network (GDN) is an application for the efficient, worldwide distribution of freely redistributable software packages. Distribution is made efficient by encapsulating the software into special distributed objects which efficiently replicate themselves near to the downloading clients. The Globe Distribution Network takes a novel, optimistic approach to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted and illicit material via the network. Instead of having moderators check the packages at upload time, illegal content is removed and its uploader's access to the network permanently revoked only when the violation is discovered. Other protective measures defend the GDN against internal and external attacks to its availability. By exploiting the replication of the software and using fault-tolerant server software, the Globe Distribution Network achieves high availability. A prototype implementation of the GDN is available from http://www.cs.vu.nl/globe/.

The Globe Distribution Network (GDN) is an application for worldwide distribution of freely redistributable software packages. The GDN takes a novel, optimistic approach to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted and illicit material via the network. Instead of having moderators check the software archives at upload time, illegal content is removed and its uploader's access to the network permanently revoked only when the content is discovered. An important feature of the GDN is that the objects containing the software can run on untrustworthy servers. A first version of the GDN has been implemented and has been running since October 2000 across four European sites.