About WinMX

WinMX was a once-popular file-sharing program used by millions of people to share computer information with each other. It was shut down after receiving a "cease-and-desist" letter from the Recording Industry Association of America, but not before being in use by upward of 3 million people.

History

WinMX was a free file-sharing program published by Frontcode Technologies. It was designed for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Instead of connecting to a server to download files, users would connect to each other and download files that way. WinMX was first released in 2001, and by 2005, it was supported an estimated 2 million users.

Abandoned

After receiving a case-and-desist letter from the Recording Industry Association of America in late 2005 (due in large part to the massive amount of illegally copied files being shared by WinMX users), Frontcode Technologies abandoned all development on the WinMX program. It was resurrected not too long after by the users, and it still remains in use, though not nearly as popular as it once was.

Peer-to-Peer

Instead of a normal Internet situation where a user connects to a server hosting a file and downloads it from there, WinMX supported peer-to-peer connections. This meant users would connect to each other and download the files that way. Files would often be downloaded in small chunks from a variety of users simultaneously. This dramatically improved download speeds even on slow connections.

Types

WinMX gave users the ability to share any type of audio, video or other computer file over its network. The only drawback is the restriction on the maximum size a file can have. Files on the WinMX network could be no larger than 2GB. Anything larger would have to be split up into smaller files before sharing.

Chat

One feature of WinMX that was unique was its built-in chat abilities. Users could connect to chat rooms while the program was open. Certain rooms only allowed chatting, while others also allowed sending and receiving files. There were up to 2,000 chat rooms available at a time.