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Magnet

From iA wiki

Home Page: http://magnet-uri.sourceforge.net (Sourceforge)

MAGNET is an open URI-scheme and supporting practices/code for enabling seamless integration between websites and locally-running utilities, such as file-management tools. Although it has been integrated into a file sharing model, the possibilities for its use are very broad. Here's an example of what a MAGNET URI looks like:

magnet:?xt=urn:sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQCZO5C

Numerous other forms are possible -- "magnet" URIs are not just to pass URN-based names. See the draft overview/spec for details.

MAGNET is:

  • A working model! Assistance improving the specification, examples, and implementating code is needed!
  • Open. Anyone can implement and advertise MAGNET support in their applications.
  • Vendor- and project-neutral. There is no single project or application, commercial or otherwise, which is *the* "MAGNET" program. Programs need not fight over installing themselves as *the* one "magnet:" handler -- instead, "magnet:" always brings up a list of options.

"Magnet" and "Magnet-URI", in the context of resource identifiers and clickable links, are trademarks of the MAGNET-URI project, but blanket permission is granted to freely use these terms to describe software and content faithfully implementing the MAGNET specifications.

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Software

Tools that utilize MAGNET URIs

  • Bearshare, a file-sharing program using the Gnutella network.
  • Xolox, a file-sharing program using the Gnutella network.
  • Shareaza, a file-sharing program using the Gnutella network. 
Home Page: http://magnet-uri.sourceforge.net (Sourceforge)

MAGNET is an open URI-scheme and supporting practices/code for enabling seamless integration between websites and locally-running utilities, such as file-management tools. Here's an example of what a MAGNET URI looks like:

magnet:?xt=urn:sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQCZO5C

Numerous other forms are possible -- "magnet" URIs are not just to pass URN-based names. See the draft overview/spec for details.

MAGNET is:

  • A working model! Assistance improving the specification, examples, and implementating code is needed!
  • Open. Anyone can implement and advertise MAGNET support in their applications.
  • Vendor- and project-neutral. There is no single project or application, commercial or otherwise, which is *the* "MAGNET" program, although the most popular is currently Azureus. Programs need not fight over installing themselves as *the* one "magnet:" handler -- instead, "magnet:" always brings up a list of options.

"Magnet" and "Magnet-URI", in the context of resource identifiers and clickable links, are trademarks of the MAGNET-URI project, but blanket permission is granted to freely use these terms to describe software and content faithfully implementing the MAGNET specifications. Some software that handles MAGNET URIs:

  • Bearshare, a file-sharing program using the Gnutella network.
  • Xolox, a file-sharing program using the Gnutella network.
  • Shareaza, a file-sharing program using the Gnutella network.
Many sites no longer host torrent files but are instead distributed across an Azureus'-specific network. I'm not sure how this is *really* different legally since its a hash of a hash but this looks like it'll be the future of torrent distribution.
"Torrents" are instead distributed via Magnet strings.
MRIs can be cut and pasted into Azureus (Ctrl+L) and a hash-scanned file will begin to download (if a tracker is available).
As servers get progressively more and more full, this may be a longer term way to exchange ever larger and more specialized files (such as older Linux distributions/kernels).
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