giFT

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giFT
Developed by	jasta
Initial release	?
Stable release	0.11.8.1  (2004-11-27) [+/−]
Preview release	unknown  (unknown) [+/−]
Written in	?
Platform	Cross-platform
Available in	?
Genre	Peer to peer
License	GNU GPL
Website	http://gift.sf.net/

giFT Internet File Transfer (giFT) is a computer software daemon that allows several file sharing protocols to be used with a simple client having a graphical user interface (GUI). The client dynamically loads plugins implementing the protocols, as they are required. The protocols are:

• Stable
  • OpenFT, giFT's own file sharing protocol
  • Gnutella (used by LimeWire, Shareaza)
  • Ares Galaxy
  • Turtle F2F
• Beta version
  • FastTrack (used by Kazaa). The GiFT plugin is giFT-FastTrack.
• Alpha version
  • OpenNap
  • eDonkey
  • Soulseek

The clients communicate with the giFT process using a lightweight network protocol; the protocol code is completely abstracted from the user interface. There are already several giFT GUI front-ends for Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Unix-like operating systems.

The name giFT is a recursive acronym.

giFT is written using relatively cross-platform C code.

giFT currently lacks unicode support included, and it is impossible to share files with characters such as "ø","ä", "å", "é", "è", "ó", "ö", "ù", "ü" in their names.

[edit] OpenFT protocol

giFT's sibling project is OpenFT, a peer-to-peer file sharing network protocol that has 'search' nodes and 'index' supernodes in addition to common nodes. According to the giFT documentation:

Search nodes handle search requests. They search the filelists their CHILD (common) nodes submitted to them. These nodes must have a capable Internet connection and at least 128M RAM. A modern processor is highly recommended as well.

and

INDEX nodes keep lists of available search nodes, collect statistics, and try to maintain the structure of the network.

[edit] giFT front-ends

Name	Platform
Epicea	Microsoft Windows
giFTcurs	Unix-like; officially supported UI
Apollon	Unix-like/KDE
FilePipe	Microsoft Windows
giFToxic	Unix-like/GTK
giFTui [1]	Unix-like/GTK
giFTwin32 [2]	Microsoft Windows
KCeasy	Microsoft Windows
Poisoned	Mac OS X
giFTMui [3]	AmigaOS
Xfactor	Mac OS X

[edit] External links

• giFT (Official Website)
• About giFT
• The giFT-FastTrack project page
• The giFT-OpenNap project page
• The giFT-Ares project page

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