Phex Advocacy ?
 

Is there any guide lines for Phex advocacy? Or recommendations for ways of advocating Phex? How do you Konrad think Phex should be advocated?

Is there a comparison list of features between the more notable clients and Phex? Like the ones at LimeWire and BearShare (which Phex is not compared)...

http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/features_comparison
http://www.bearshare.com/product.htm

If not, what are the more notable features and how do they compare? This is what I have so far..

1) browser blocking
2) download grouping
3) cross-platform compatibility
4) multiple simultaneous searchs
5) browse host feature
6) Scoring
7) auto-searchs
8) monitored searchs
9) resume downloads
10) spy-ware free
11) open source

Any other note worthy features or is there something I have wrong (or could be worded better)?

Would a tutorial, walk through and/or FAQ be supported by Phex on their website for new users (that shouldnt be to diffcult)?

I guess one of the most important questions is, is the Phex developers/contributors interested in a larger userbase, and may be more publicity for Phex, or is this kind of a secretive project?

I like the mascot BTW? :)

I consider Phex to be still in the development stage. Although it is already fully functional and can be used just as any other client it still isn´t finished.

If you want to do some advertising (not advocacy) for Phex I can just encourage you to do so. I don´t think I can tell or give you anything that would help you much. Phex is just like it appears on your screen.

If you or someone wants to write a more detailed FAQ or documentation I would surely appreciate it and put it up the homepage ASAP.

And now for some inner thought: Is Phex the client for the masses or just for a small and exclusive gnutella-elite? I don´t know. Many people seem to like Phex a lot while most users still stick to Bearshare and Limewire. The cross-platform aspect of Phex makes it strong where Bearshare will never be able to score (on OS2, OS X, BeOS and all other java-enabled platforms besides MS-Win). Limewire is in many ways very similar to Phex, but the download is a lot larger and it is not open source. But Phex is less stable and has not so many additional features. Considering all the pros and cons of Phex I really think it must be the user´s choice.

i like phex
 

i like phex because it was installed/runs w/o admin privileges (i use Win NT) and because its a web server and i listen to my mp3s at work with winamp :)
other 3 win clients failed to install (didnt try under admin)
limewire is fine, but its not www server.
i rather quickly decided to use phex after trying others.
konrad, you did a good job.
thanks and i wish you change your mind and continue improoving phex.

Those are some good points I didnt think about (I am definetly no begining user).

Right now its for the elite (people who have at least tried a few clients before settling with phex).

I think it very well could be made for the masses, but it would have to be packaged up for easy install on multiple platforms, and have fuller documention (especially for the newbies who have never used gnutella before).

I'd say a lot of users stick with Bearshare or Limewire because they are popular and they dont see a need to change, and are not actively looking for new clients. I for one originally used Limewire and recommended it to friends, then I tried BearShare and it seemed to be nice (I really didnt care about the spyware), but it would always reset my download list and there wasnt download grouping, Limewire on the other hand seemed slower or like there was something else wrong with it, that is when I started doing research in programming my own Gnutella client, I found a java library called Jtella, and thought that was a good route to go but it turned out to be an out dated library (it wouldnt compile or function), so I then remember source forge and did a search in there and came across phex, from then on I since havent used Limewire or bearshare, it did crash on me a few times which appeared to be random, and they were pretty severe crashes taking down my network card having to reboot to get it back, but that was really rare, and at the time I was experimenting and switching ports and connect counts when phex was connected to the gnutella network :p. But anyway I just saw my downloads increase by a lot, even a friend I recommended it to had also noticed considerable increase in the chances of downloading a file over night. The autosearch feature allows it to stay up to date on the changes in the gnutella network, and I can customize the search string for it.

I agree with that on the basis that some users will want a nice and clean interface (form over function), while others will want more functionality.

There is a few things I dont get though, why do you need to talk on the GDF to implement parallel downloading of the same file? I can understand that some extra protocols can be done to help improve it, but I dont see it as totally necesary. Its no diffrent then downloading diffrent files at the same time... The way GetRight handles it is by breaking the file into multiple pieces and then downloading the diffrent piecies from diffrent hosts, extra protocols can be used to prevent you from losing your seat (so to speak) while switching a host from one piece to downloading another piece, and at the end of the download the peices are recombined. Anyway, I will more then likely join the GDF and discuss this there.

I think another aspect that has not been mentioned is possibly looking into revenue models. Its cool that this is being done for free and open source, but most projects these days are looking into ways of getting money in. Freenet for example uses donations through paypal, and with this money they were able to hire a full time programmer, and it can be used to get publicity, this way Phex can get the recognition it deservers (and I really think it does deserver a lot of recognition it is IMHO a great if not the best way to use gnutella).

small upload #s
 

i run LimeWire and Phex. after a night i saw about 6 uploads in phex and about 400 (_many_ more) in LW. same thing if i exchange assigned ports. i dont think that people dont want to download from phex.
does it mean phex doesnt support some upgrades of gnutella protocol?

I dont think there is that kind of bias, it may be something to do with quality rating in Limewire and Bearshare, they may report that your client is low quality and less people will try it. I have to agree though, that it does seem like less people download from me when I run it, and actually I noticed most people download smaller files, so it may be that they the quality of connection is screwed up and they avoid downloading from me thinking they will not get good speed. That is something worth trying. One thing though, is I rarely see other Phex clients out there, more often then not they download from me.

Speed-Splitting
 

Maybe that is because phex allowes you to specify which speed you want to give the uploads and so the other users see which speed they really get (afaik).

free_bound

The simplest way t advertise for Phex is to go to the News-Site featuring Phex and to rate it.

(Following URLs taken from Phex-URLs (where to turn for Infos))

News- and Update-Sites featuring Phex:

On Versiontracker you can find Phex by following this URL:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/26478

News about OSX-Updates of Phex in German can be optained at MacTechNews.de:
http://mactechnews.de/index.php?function=10&id=3041

On MacUpdate you can find it here:
http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/19449

If you know any more Sites featuring Phex or some resources I missed, please post them!

Also helpful is to post any small Feature-Request which comes to your mind in a seperate RFE at Sourceforge. The same goes for Bugs:

Project: http://sf.net/projects/phex
Bugs: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?grou...21&atid=388892
Feature-Requests: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?grou...21&atid=388895

Also you can contribute in the Wiki or post in your favourite forum.

The most noteable features of Phex include (as taken from teh phex.org site -> Features):

(Phex is a file sharing program running on the Gnutella Network. It will run on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, and other operating systems supporting Java 1.4.)

Phex is a FREE of spyware and adware
Phex never containd any kind of spyware, adware or any other kind of bundled software. (Softpedia award)

Multi-plattform support
Whether you use Windows, MacOS X, Linux or Solaris Phex is able to run on them all. All you need is a operation system that offers a Java 1.4 Runtime Environment.

Multi-source downloads (Swarming)
Often the file you like to download is available on several different hosts. Phex will request different segments of the file from each host in parallel. After successfully downloading a segment Phex will merge it with the other segments of that file. This results in a much higher download speed. If a host is too slow the segment is split during download and given to another host. To make sure you never run out of hosts Phex is able to find new download hosts by itself with the automatic search functionality and features the Download Mesh.
You can choose for each download whether the segments should be chosen according to their availability (rarest first, BitTorrent-Style), their place in the file (earlier segments first, useful for previewing the file) or randomly.

Advanced configuration options
Phex offers very advanced configuration options. Much more than many other clients can offer. Especially advanced user can configure Phex according to their needs and are able to tune and see the effect of different settings.

Passive searching and snooping for files
With the passive search functionality Phex is able to constantly monitor the traffic that goes through the network and collect search results that match your passive search term. Also Phex snoops the traffic for new download candidates you need to finish your downloads faster. This type of searching is also useful for longtime monitoring of available files on the network.

Other features include:
Multiple searches.
Ultrapeer and compression technology for reduced bandwidth.
Integrated chat.
Browse host support.
Bitzi metadata lookup.
MAGMA support.