I know that direct p2p filesharing programs have been mostly superceded by torrents and even ddl, but sometimes I feel like "trying my luck" with stuff I didn't search for directly (behind a VM, because i'm not that adventurous)

soulseek is the most known and used nowadays as far as i know. it is mostly used for music and film

eMule is still kicking

A while back I tried DC++ and it's still alive. I just couldn't get the whole port forwarding to work

The most basic webrtc-based (thus direct) fileshare I use is wormhole.app EDIT: ok screw it they spoiled the app

Airdrop? Windows Network (SMB) Sharing?

If it’s direct then why the 10GB limit?

LocalSend

I meant p2p file sharing programs with file discovery, similar to emule/edonkey, limewire and shareaza

I meant p2p file sharing programs with file discovery, similar to emule/edonkey, limewire and shareaza

retroshare?

The only real option nowadays is SoulSeek. Just make sure you set it up properly. I have seen loads of people mistakenly (I assume) share personal folders. And I am sure some people pry on these.

A couple years ago I was going through this guy's shared folders because he had a few bits of obscure media I was looking for. Then I ended in a folder containing very personal pictures (family, ids, bank cards). I was actually scared for that guy! I literally found his phone number in the files, and called him to warn him... We are still friends! :D
Following this I did two things:

• Spent a whole day looking for people sharing personal info, and warning them.
• Made a folder with files containing fake personal info, fake pictures, etc. I just gave the files names like password.txt, holiday2017.png, etc. Those files were downloaded almost immediately.

For over 3 years I had a torrent that had been stuck at just under 90%. We were 4 more or less 2 over the years. Then I randomly found this guy on soulseek who had the file from the torrent (exact name and size), but it was in private. I messaged him, he wanted to trade (never understood this type of people). Thankfully I had something he wanted. We traded, switched the file in the torrent folder, force check, 100% Motherfuckers! I never kept in touch with that guy, and his precious little file is easily findable on public trackers :D

TLDR - Soulseek

damn, it was "p2p always", now they added some nonsense server feature. Screw them web3 cryptobros!

Spent a whole day looking for people sharing personal info, and warning them.

You really did god's work there

I messaged him, he wanted to trade (never understood this type of people)

Me neither. I guess they revel in being the "sole proprietor" of hard to find data and think they're like shiny rocks or something

That sucks bro, sorry they did that lol.

pairdrop.net works reasonably well for me

A better approach is to always run any software like this in a container/VM.

For piracy this is particularly important as you can very easily set it up so that it can ONLY communicate over VPN. So if your VPN goes down, you stop sharing.

My "primary" is qbitorrent+gluetun over proton (port forwarding). For Soulseek I have that go over the same tunnel but don't bother with port forwarding.

I do my nonsense on a server in my basement. But you can run a docker compose stack on a Windows desktop if you really want to.

I still use mldonkey 24/7 for ed2k/kad and torrent. It works flawlessly.

I want to thank you and people like you.

I had someone do something similar for me, when I switched from Plex to Jellyfin I didn't know what I was doing too well and it wasn't as secure as I had thought it was. Well someone found and gained access to it and, rather than doing something nefarious, let me know by changing a few cover art images to a warning explaining that with how it was set up at the time I could get compromised quite easily. They saved my ass from a huge headache down the line I'm sure, and I never got to thank them for it.

Check out slsk.