Lopster is a free peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing program which supports napster-like servers such as OpenNAP or SlavaNap. It was developed by Markus Lausser for Unix-like systems using the Gtk programming libraries. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Lopster has also been ported to Microsoft Windows. Free software, as defined by Richard Stallman and his Free Software Foundation, can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed. ... A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is any network that does not rely on dedicated servers for communication but instead mostly uses direct connections between clients (peers). ... File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... OpenNAP is a piece of free software that replicates the functionality of the once-popular Napster peer-to-peer filesharing server. ... SlavaNap is an alternative Peer to Peer server with many version changes. ... A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a UNIX system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... The GNU logo For other uses of GPL, see GPL (disambiguation). ... Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. ...

As with other P2P programs, the shared files stay on the client machine, and do not pass through servers. The server provides the ability to search for particular files and initiate a direct transfer between the clients.

Lopster also supports chat forums similar to IRC. It used to have WPNP 2 support, although it was locked out with the arrival of WPNP 3. WinMX is a peer-to-peer file sharing program authored by Frontcode Technologies. ...

External links

• Lopster Homepage
• Windows Port of Lopster
• Rama Lopster,unofficial Windows Port of Lopster (italian)