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Xunlei

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Xunlei
Developer(s)Thunder Networking Technologies (a.k.a. Xunlei Networking Technologies)
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, Mac OS X, Android,iOS
Size22.3 MB[1]
Available inSimplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English with a language pack
TypePeer-to-peer file sharing
LicenseClosed source adware
Websitexunlei.com

Xunlei (Chinese: 迅雷; pinyin: Xùn Léi; lit. 'thunderbolt') is a download manager and Peer-to-peer software developed by Thunder Networking Technologies (Chinese: 迅雷网络技术有限公司, formerly Sandai Technologies), supporting HTTP, FTP, eDonkey, and BitTorrent protocols. As of 2010, it was the most commonly used BitTorrent client in the world.[3] On 24 June 2014, it went public on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, raising just shy of $88 million.[4]

Products

The Xunlei download manager, generally called Xunlei, is the flagship product of Xunlei Corporation, which also supports Xunlei Kankan, a video-on-demand website, and other desktop software. Xunlei is the most popular download software in China.

Xunlei

Through Xunlei, users can access a large portion of the files available on the Internet. Features in Xunlei includes a built-in browser, changeable skins, cloud storage, "offline" downloading, hi-speed downloading (only available for members), email service and more.

Xunlei is accompanied by a family of products including Xunlei 5, Mac Xunlei, Xunlei Mini, and Web Xunlei. As adware, Xunlei products feature banner advertisements, which can be disabled if logged in as a user (in the latest version).

Xunlei Kankan

Xunlei Kankan, also known as Kankan, is a video-on-demand service with a web interface as well as a client application. Xunlei Kankan is also available on mobile platforms including Android and iOS (including iPhone and Kankan HD for iPad).

Others

Along with Xunlei 7 and Kankan, the company also produces software such as a gaming client, a graphics editor, game "accelerator", software manager, and a web photo viewer.

Concerns and criticisms

File sharing

Xunlei is different from P2P tools in that it does not support active file sharing. While copyright advocates view Xunlei as a P2P tool that facilitates copyright violation, P2P advocates criticize Xunlei as a leech with much more downloading than uploading. Also it is often observed that Xunlei prioritizes file sharing with Xunlei users rather than other client users. Many pure P2P tools have blocked Xunlei, although this trend weakened after Xunlei began balancing the number of downloads and uploads.

Xunlei sets up its own storage servers to backup the files which are not active or shared any longer. This feature is named as High-Speed Channel and allows Xunlei users retrieve data faster than others. But only paying users have access to these servers and download files.

Direct linking

Direct linking, or leeching, concerns many site owners, who may feel that the practice benefits Xunlei at their sites' expense. In 2006, Huajun, the leading download site in China, started blocking Xunlei along with many other downloading sites.

User agent imitation

Since many websites recognized and blocked Xunlei via user agent (UA) string, Xunlei began to use common browsers' UA as camouflage. The default UA is: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) or Mozilla/5.0 Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6. However, if Xunlei determines it is blocked from a website, it will automatically change UA to imitate other browsers, such as: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729)

Privacy

Xunlei shares files by default without additional notifications after installation. While Xunlei argues that this behavior is a common convention and that users can disable it, some users are still worried, since Xunlei's sharing policy is unclear. Investigations[by whom?] have revealed that Xunlei only shares files downloaded through Xunlei.[citation needed] Moving or renaming files may automatically disable sharing.[clarification needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference xl7 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "xunlei.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  3. ^ Van Der Sar, Ernesto. "Thunder Blasts uTorrent's Market Share Away". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 15 September 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "Xunlei IPO on Nasdaq raises $88m". Retrieved 24 June 2014.

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