Get A Peer Activity Study In EDonkey & Kad Wt - Net T-labs Tu-berlin

The eDonkey network is a decentral hybrid peer-to-peer file-sharing network with client applications running on the end-system that are connected to a distributed network of dedicated servers.

The eDonkey network, however, is still active, although the system is not nearly as popular as it once was. EDonkey still uses the same vulnerable encryption it did in 2004. EMule, a popular program for connecting to the eDonkey network, hasn't had an update in over seven years.

“People still use eDonkey — Many of the older file-sharing applications have long-passed – LimeWire, Kazzaa, AudioGalaxy, Napster – they're no more. But eMule is still with us. It's a peer-to-peer file-sharing application that uses eDonkey servers and its own decentralized Kad network.

Due to legal and copyright issues, the eDonkey Network was officially shut down in 2005, but its protocol inspired the development of other peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as eMule and the Kad network.

As of October 2023, it is the fifth most downloaded project on SourceForge, with over 693 million downloads. Development was later restarted by the community as eMule Community; the latest stable version is 0.70a.