Direct Connect The World of Peer-to-Peer (P2P)/Networks and Protocols/Direct Connect - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

Here's one of them: DC++ your files, your way, no limits but I think only for windows

neo-modus direct connect was the original which all other direct connect clients copied from. But their site seems to have sold to an advertiser. Program no longer runs. On my old G4, I tried my old mac shakespear client, connected ok on OSX 10.3.9 but not even opened on tiger .. perhaps because it wasn't installed on there or perhaps because it's no longer developed. Their forums no longer exist. So I have no idea now what alternatives there are for Mac direct connect. I haven't used it for about 3 years or over.

Direct connect connects via hubs. There are public hubs & private hubs. A private hub would be ideal if you guys could set one up between you. However it does require extra software & know-how to set up & operate. Private hubs are invitation only, & usually require passwords to enter. You can share directly with anybody within the hub. Simply click on their user id & view their files, choose whichever to download. Easy as that. Cannot remember if you can make certain folders shared with only certain people, or prevent others within same hub seeing particular folders. From memory I think you can stop a person viewing your files at all.

Disadvantage of public hubs is anybody can download from you. Some have minimum share requirements such as 10 GB or 1 Gb depending. Some don't have much in way of requirements.

You might be best to use Parallels & set up windows XP, run a direct connect client such as Direct Connect++. Via parallels you could share files/folders directly from your mac.

BTW it's much easier to share very large numbers of files via direct connect than LW. Direct Connect (except for initial hashing of files when you add to share) does not seem overladen if too many shares. And also reads from external drives much much better than LW can for sharing. LW seems to carry all files shared on its shoulders. lol DC clients don't.

Bittorrent I 'think' now has a private share option with 'friends'. That's definitely a thought. There's also private sites for BT users. But they always have share requirements. Unless you guys set up your own. The 'Friends' option sounds good & is probably similar to LW 5's Friends option. I haven't tried either so cannot give you any more information.

Other alternative might be Skype.

Edit: Silly me thought you were a mac user. Not sure why I got confused. There are alternatives to DC++ for direct connect. Thanks Sleepless also. A great alternative to DC.