How about a search by file type feature ? ( ie. .zip, .rar etc )
 

Before I start - Nice Proggy !!

Up until now i have noticed that these kind of programs are very pro mp3. How about a search feature to allow searching of other file types ?
( much more affective than putting in "zip" or another file type into the search area, as this still brings in other file types )

Also, some kind of ratio scheme that's built into the program might be an idea.. it would encourage more people to share what they have got.. so there would be less "0" files on offer from people.
Say for example that a 1:50 ratio was built in.. so if you had one file available for upload, you would have listed in your host box all the people who have files of 50 or less.

Anyway, thanks for reading !
: )

That wouldn't work. You could write a program that generates a large number of files with different file names, extensions, and sizes.

Cyclo is right.... one thing that you need to remember about the entire Gnutella protocol is that it is open source. This is both a strength and a weakness.

It is a strength because lots of minds can improve it. (two heads are better than one, usually)

It is a weakness because anyone with some programming skill can make their own client do pretty much anything they want. Take the spammers for instance. It is pretty easy to return a false a search hit, connectection speed, or IP. In your case, anyone could simply create a client that told everyone else that it was sharing 10,000 files. Even if it was sharing 0 in reality.

All suggestions/changes should benefit everybody on the Gnutella net, no matter what their contibution. Else, it will never be accepted.

Keep in mind the Gnutella net is designed to be FREE in the first place.

Thanks for the replies - Point(s) taken..
I got the idea from CuteMX which has a minimum of one file on offer before you can download.

How about the search for file types?? ( this too is used in CuteMX - unfortunately they have backed down and closed their server until the Napster case is clear it would seem. )

Regards,
Cameron.

A file type filter would have the same problem. Someone already modified a client so it returns "[your_search_query].vbs" for every search that passes through it. It would be easily to modify it so it returns "[your_search_query].[your_file_type_filter_extension]".

[This message has been edited by CycloCide (edited 08-15-2000).]

I think a file type filter would be useful on the search results anyway. If you're always going to get spam at least you only have to look at spam of the right file type and you wouldn't have to worry about a .vbs at all. All search results would still come back to the client it would just only display the ones of the specified type. It would just be another one of the sorting type options that you could toggle on and off and would have nothing to do with the query sent or the protocol.