From Newsgroup: comp.misc

From the «outlived its simple origins» department:
Feed: OSnews
Title: Gnutella: a protocol outliving the world that created it
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Sat, 23 May 2026 22:03:03 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/145066/gnutella-a-protocol-outliving-the-world-that-created-it/

Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.

Gnutella is a file sharing protocol that many have forgotten and it
has the story of a decentralized technology adopted by millions of
casual users who did not care to learn what a peer-to-peer system was.
Users showed up because the protocol solved real problems at scale and
the solution just so happened to be decentralized. No one ever
pretended to use Gnutella in hopes their GnutellaCoinTM would go up in
value later. They just downloaded MP3s. The network exploded in
popularity, then plateaued for almost a decade, then settled into a
permanent long tail state of continued but diminished use.

Welcome to my overly enthusiastic love letter to Gnutella.
↫ Rick Carlino[1]

I genuinely didn’t know – or I had forgotten, more likely – that
Gnutella formed the backbone of LimeWire, another name I haven’t heard
in a long time. I’m quite sure I used LimeWire over 25 years ago, but
details are fuzzy and I might be confusing it with other filesharing
networks of a similar vintage. I was an avid CD buyer and MiniDisc user
(I used MD well into the smartphone age), so I didn’t have much need for downloading MP3s.

Gnutella is also apparently still active, and there are still clients
you can download and use. Of course, it’s a mere shadow of its former
self, but this, too, was news to me. I’m kind of inclined to see if it’s still hosting MP3s.

Links:
[1]: https://rickcarlino.com/notes/p2p/gnutella-explanation.html (link)

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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 26 May 2026 21:49:32 GMT, Retrograde wrote:

Gnutella is also apparently still active, and there are still
clients you can download and use. Of course, it’s a mere shadow of
its former self, but this, too, was news to me. I’m kind of inclined
to see if it’s still hosting MP3s.

Seems unnecessary, given the copyright holders themselves are now
posting all their music on YouTube, and YouTube downloader apps
continue to work just fine.
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In comp.misc, Lawrence DOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On 26 May 2026 21:49:32 GMT, Retrograde wrote:

Gnutella is also apparently still active, and there are still
clients you can download and use. Of course, it's a mere shadow of
its former self, but this, too, was news to me. I'm kind of inclined
to see if it's still hosting MP3s.

Gnutella, as I recall, only supported "mp3" files. Limewire used the
same protocols but opened it up to anything.

Seems unnecessary, given the copyright holders themselves are now
posting all their music on YouTube, and YouTube downloader apps
continue to work just fine.

Increasingly I run into things youtube won't show me unless I log in,
which I refuse to do.

Eg, this Rupaul drag parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O-g0-o35sg

(Parody of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilogy_of_Terror )

I am wondering if this journey was inspired by the recent recent news of cybercriminal group Lapsus$ sharing their proof of hacking Github on
Limewire:

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/116614590622918505

Elijah
------
"I want my em-pee-thre-dot-com"
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Wed, 27 May 2026 00:12:38 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:

In comp.misc, Lawrence DOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

... YouTube downloader apps continue to work just fine.

Increasingly I run into things youtube won't show me unless I log
in, which I refuse to do.

YouTube downloader apps can fetch those, too. They just need
appropriate session cookies to get past the age gate.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 27 May 2026 00:12:38 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:

Increasingly I run into things youtube won't show me unless I log
in, which I refuse to do.

YouTube downloader apps can fetch those, too. They just need
appropriate session cookies to get past the age gate.

OK, and how do you get those session cookies if you don't log in?
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#
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From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In comp.misc, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 27 May 2026 00:12:38 -0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:

Increasingly I run into things youtube won't show me unless I log
in, which I refuse to do.

YouTube downloader apps can fetch those, too. They just need
appropriate session cookies to get past the age gate.

OK, and how do you get those session cookies if you don't log in?

DING-DING-DING! Kev has correctly identified the problem. I know yt-dlp
has cookie options, but since it has been about three years since I
logged into gmail, and longer since I logged into youtube, I'm fresh out
of coookies to feed it.

Meanwhile, Limewire doesn't ask me to log in.

Elijah
------
has logged into vimeo at least once in the last year and used yt-dlp there
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2026-05-27, Eli the Bearded wrote:

In comp.misc, Lawrence DOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On 26 May 2026 21:49:32 GMT, Retrograde wrote:

Gnutella is also apparently still active, and there are still
clients you can download and use. Of course, it's a mere shadow of
its former self, but this, too, was news to me. I'm kind of inclined
to see if it's still hosting MP3s.

Gnutella, as I recall, only supported "mp3" files.

Now that's quite a limitation, although it probably depends on how
flexible the container is; perhaps a hack on top of it similar to DOCSIS
could work it around...

Limewire used the
same protocols but opened it up to anything.

Seems unnecessary, given the copyright holders themselves are now
posting all their music on YouTube, and YouTube downloader apps
continue to work just fine.

Increasingly I run into things youtube won't show me unless I log in,
which I refuse to do.

Eg, this Rupaul drag parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O-g0-o35sg

(Parody of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilogy_of_Terror )

I think "It's not Porn, it's HBO" is now also behind an age-verification
wall. Not just login wall, but age-verification... I don't think it was
this complicated to access it back in the past?

I am wondering if this journey was inspired by the recent recent news of cybercriminal group Lapsus$ sharing their proof of hacking Github on Limewire:

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/116614590622918505

Elijah
------
"I want my em-pee-thre-dot-com"

--
Nuno Silva
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