eDonkey was a popular file sharing application that was used by millions of people. When e-Donkey was first created it used centralized servers that users donated toward the cause of sharing and downloading files. However, a centralized server just begged for attack by hackers and other malicious entities. Therefore, eDonkey decentralized and became a peer to peer network. There were no eDonkey downloads off a central server. Instead, eDonkey free download were between users, using the peer to peer technique.

During its heyday, you could download eDonkey for free and you probably even found a ton of eDonkey links on other program download sites. When you downloaded eDonkey, you could trade all sorts of files such as software programs and various picture formats. You could even swap video files, audio files such as mp3s and much more. There was really no holding back as to the types of files you could trade.

eDonkey developed the eDonkey 2000 which allowed for larger files to be traded via file sharing. Through the eDonkey website, you could run an eDonkey search and look for server mets on eDonkey. The eDonkey server lists helped you find the files you wanted to download. And what is cool is that even though all of these files are not on a central server, the file search still moves rather quickly considering how many users it has to go through to find the file you want. eDonkey for free ran on three major operating systems: Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. eDonkey even surpassed Kazaa’s popularity.

Unfortunately for the free eDonkey phenomenon, they got into a bit of trouble with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) regarding copyright infringements. It seems that some of the users were swapping illegal copies of music and eDonkey could not control it from happening. So, the company paid out millions of dollars to settle the matter and withdrew eDonkey and its other eDonkey counterparts off the download lists. Now if you try the eDonkey website, it will have an announcement about how you should not violate copyright laws by downloading illegally. The website also says that it captures your IP address. Given these circumstances, it is safe to say that there probably won’t an eDonkey 2007.

Now there are still clients of the eDonkey movement that are still in use. The reason that this is continuing is because only the eDonkey software application itself as well as its network has shut down. These clients can still run without the need for eDonkey itself.