Cohen wrote a piece of software (also called BitTorrent and also free) to use this standard in 2002, it has been hugely popular. This is the BitTorrent protocol - a standard that makes this kind of transfer possible. And it means everyone gets the file much faster, because they are spreading the job over dozens of computers. This means not everyone needs to download the file from one place in one go, taking the pressure and expense off the guy trying to distribute the file. It divides up the task of moving files around. This is what BitTorrent does - amazingly efficiently. This is what is called a peer-to-peer (or P2P) approach - the peers are sharing the files with other people, as well as the workload of moving them around the Internet. In short, everyone becomes both a customer and a distributor. It's a bit like in the ice machine analogy, the ice is split up and dumped off at different houses, so anyone can pick up what is needed and share it with others until everyone gets ice. Dude A, say, downloads the first bit, Dude B the second, Dude C the third, and so forth, and then Dude B can grab the first bit off Dude A and the third bit off Dude C, etc., until everyone is sharing what they have with anyone who hasn't. Now imagine you break up that 100-megabyte file and let people download different bits of it to their computer, then share bits with each other until everyone has the whole file. They may get their ice, but they aren't going to be happy to have to wait. It's a bit like inviting them all to come around and simultaneously use your ice machine. It may not crash the computer hosting your Web site, but it'll slow it down, especially if all those 100 people want to try to download it at the same time. This is obviously better than email, but it still means that 100 people have to download the file from your Web site. You could post it to a Web site, and then send them a link so they can each download it, one by one. You could email it to them, clogging up their inboxes and losing their friendship forever. But what about bigger files? Imagine you have a 100-megabyte file - a short home movie, say - you want to make available to 100 of your acquaintances.
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