A really old and officially unsupported program, and believed by many people to be dead. What a lot of people do not know, is that it’s still alive and kicking, thanks to a patch from the community.

The creation of WinMX, and it’s downfall
In october 2000, the people at Frontcode created a P2P client by the name of WinMX. Only an OpenNap client at that time (using the Napster protocol), it already became very popular at that time. Many people liked the stability of the program, and the no-nonsense interface, while still maintaining a quite amazing featureset. However, in  2001, the RIAA cracked down on many P2P providers, and the OpenNap network fell. WinMX evolved very quickly, and on May 2, 2001, WinMX 2.5 was released, supporting a brand new network called the WinMX Peer Network (WPNP). It featured a system of primary non-firewalled (pass-on-the-data) nodes, and secondary firewalled nodes, who used the primary nodes in order to connect to the network. This made it possible to connect to the network, even when you were firewalled. The new protocol supported multi-source downloads, which meant you could download the same file from several users at the same time, this way shortening the download time. Because of all the users already using WinMX for its OpenNap access, the WPNP protocol became very popular in a very short amount of time.
However, in 2005, shortly after several sites noticed that it was one of the largest and most active networks, it was shut down by the RIAA. Frontcode received a cease and desist letter, forcing them to shut down both the peer servers (that were used to let peers know where other peers could be found) and the WinMX website. WinMX went dead in an instant.

But it’s not dead yet.
Only days after the WinMX site and peer cache servers are shut down, a patch is released by some WinMX enthusiasts. It enables WinMX users to once again connect to the network, using alternative peer cache servers. In fact, two independent groups both released a patch shortly afterwards, modifying the DNS for the WinMX domain. The first one was the PIE Patch, while the second one was the patch by WinMXGroup.com. The latter eventually changed into a DLL patch, which enabled the blocking of fake files and viruses from the network, while the former was generally seen as more stable and safe, because everybody could see what it contained (it only being a hosts file modification, and not a replacement of a critical WinMX file). PIE Patch, however, did not offer fake file blocking.

And then it happened…
The WinMXGroup patch, which I had been using as well as the PIE Patch, suddenly ceased support. I switched back to PIE, and not very long afterwards, on September 20, 2008, there was an announcement of a collaborative “community patch”. This patch was a DLL patch, and replaced both the (obsolete) WinMXGroup patch, and the PIE Patch. It quickly became popular, and right now just about everyone is using the Community Patch, except for those that still only use WinMX for OpenNap connections.

So, what’s so great about it?
In fact, the fact that not everybody knows there is a patch for it, leads to a network with higher quality. To date, there are (close to) zero fake files and viruses on the network. Nada, nothing, zilch, zero. Even though it’s sometimes hard to find the more rare files (in which case torrents might be a better choice), the network is very stable now, and of a very high quality. It has a chat room feature, which greatly integrates with the rest of the WinMX application. In fact, the chat rooms are the best way to find a certain type of file. If you are looking for the newest movie that just came out (but you know that’s illegal, blah blah blah) you just join a specialized movie release room, and ask if anyone has got it. 99.99% they have. WinMX is, in my experience, one of the first networks where releases appear, before appearing in torrents, on Limewire, etc. In fact, WinMX can be used for pretty much every kind of file or download, especially since it doesn’t have any technical limit on the filetypes. Any file can be shared.

But there must be drawbacks.
Sure there are. One of the most annoying drawbacks is that WinMX will attempt to download the wrong file if you click ‘yes’ on a “are you sure you want to download this executable” window while still loading the list of files. Another annoying thing about WinMX, is that it makes use of queues. While this keeps your download speed high (yes, downloads on the WinMX network are usually VERY fast, especially movies), it might lead to an hour of waiting for only 1 MP3 file. The last thing some people complain about is that the interface looks horrible, and is complicated. The general rule of thumb is: don’t look at the graphics, and just don’t touch any buttons of which you don’t understand what they do. Then everything will work just fine.

So…
If you want to try WinMX, you can get it from http://patch.winmxconex.com/. If you have any questions about WinMX, just drop me a line or post a comment. I’ve been using WinMX for a long time – and I mean long – and I might be able to answer them for you. I really recommend you at least try the software. It’s really a lost gem in the P2P world, and it’s a pity that the network is slowly getting less active (despite the active patch development). Oh, and don’t forget to look in the chat rooms. They are really worth your time.

Sources used:
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=925
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9768/exclusive_winmxworld_announces_the_winmx_community_patch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winmx
http://www.slyck.com/winmx.php

Disclaimer: I do not encourage using WinMX for illegally downloading files. I can’t prevent it either, though. Be wise and use your own judgement, as applies to all my blog posts and software.