Zultrax
| Zultrax | |
|---|---|
| Basic data
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| developer | Zultrax VOF |
| Current version | 4.38 (August 27, 2009) |
| operating system | Windows |
| category | peer to peer |
| License | Proprietary |
| German speaking | No |
| www.zultrax.com | |
Zultrax is a Dutch file sharing program for Windows . It supports the ZEPP and Gnutella networks .
The program is shareware , but should be fully functional when unregistered. It does not contain adware / spyware .
Zultrax was developed in 2001 by Peter Bartholomeus and is now being further developed by a development group called Zultrax VOF . It is programmed in Borland Delphi , which is why a 64-bit version of the program is not available.
The goal of Zultrax is to combine ease of use (it has both a graphical user interface and a command line ) with encryption and privacy protection (the ZEPP network was developed for this purpose).
During the installation, the user must agree to a license according to which he may freely use and distribute the program, but may not analyze or change the program or the network (reverse engineering).
ZEPP network
The developers advocate the idea of security through obscurity , so the ZEPP protocol is not fully disclosed. This is a major disadvantage for the benefit of this network and this program.
The information for searching and exchanging files should be transmitted in encrypted form.
Users who exchange a file are supposed to be grouped, similar to BitTorrent .
Unwanted users (Big Brother), who only eavesdrop, should be kept away, as 2% of the network traffic is random useless false information, similar to WinMX . The usefulness of this strategy is doubtful. Unwanted users who are seen as a danger and should be excluded also include all non-Zultrax clients. This prevents new clients for this network that are based on reverse engineering and represent another major disadvantage for the use of this network.
Similar to eMule, a hash sum of the content is created for each file so that files can be exchanged even if the file name is different for two users.
Any user can act as a proxy to prevent direct source-destination links. This is to prevent a Big Brother user from offering a file and being able to see who is downloading that file because they only see a proxy. The same goes for the other direction. This strategy has the inevitable disadvantage that the network becomes slower because, to be sensible, proxies consume at least 50% of the network's bandwidth.
The ideas behind the network and the program are not new and the implementation is rather poor. Nevertheless, there is another P2P network / client on the market that is relatively modern and addresses current security problems in P2P networks.
Since October 2006 (?) Zultrax has been offered in two versions, a free and a pro version.