AllPeers Doesn’t Sound Impressed With Me
I remember reading all these news articles and blogs about AllPeers and thought to myself, “While I’m sure there are happy users on AllPeers, I don’t see anything that demonstrates why the application is great beyond what seems to come off of the homepage much.”
I also thought to myself how much press and publicity it was getting which is very unusual for a FireFox extension and a P2P program. Some of the Slyck staff helped me out with testing this program. I think at one point, someone in the staff commented on me being too light on AllPeers which I laugh at now considering AllPeers called my article a “Hatchet job”.
Of course, last night, I didn’t even have a clue what this article would start considering it was published long after I went to bed. I wake up in the middle of the afternoon (my article was a bitch to write and I still don’t think it was a complete assessment at the end of the day as I’m sure I missed a thing or two) to find out not only was the thing published, but AllPeers made a response.
Here’s what AllPeers had to say about my article:
Slyck, a popular P2P blog, is running a real hatchet job about AllPeers, so I wanted to respond and clarify the points raised by the article.
I appreciate Slyck being known as popular, but Slyck is not a blog. Slyck is a full fledged news and information resource complete with editors and writers. As for the “hatchet job”, if AllPeers is referring to my going into detail with all my reported findings. Hatchet assumes it was a blunt annalysis IIRC. While some points may be blunt, it might be better described as a precision take where I annalysed everything I could observe within the client.
I’ll let the rest of the article speak for itself here:
First and perhaps most importantly, AllPeers is not designed to be used for “darknet” applications nor have we ever made this claim. In fact, our terms and conditions clearly state that exchange of copyrighted materials is not permitted when using our software. So it’s natural that people who formed that expectation are going to be disappointed. AllPeers is intended for private groups of friends and family to share their personal media (photos, videos, PowerPoint presentations, etc.). We’ve invested all our efforts into making it a great application for this purpose, and the feedback we’ve received when it is judged on this basis has been very positive.
The article’s author obviously set out to find as many pernicious lies and misrepresentations as possible that we are alleged to have made, which is unfortunate. I would have preferred to see a much more balanced approach. A lot of the claims are just silly, some are rather harsh criticisms of software that is still in an early beta stage, while others are most probably the result of simple misunderstandings (which arise more easily when you concentrate explicitly on finding as many things as possible to “expose” about our dishonest ways). I’ll address the points one by one.
It’s true that when you install AllPeers, you’re prompted to register and that this registration screen reappears when Firefox is restarted if you haven’t already filled out the form. This is basically an oversight on our part since we haven’t received many (any?) complaints about this until now. People tend either to register or uninstall. But I agree with the author that this is too obstrusive. This is, after all, exactly the type of issue that the beta phase is intended to reveal. We’ll change it in future versions.
We’ve said many times that we are planning to open source the software but that we have not yet done so. If the author had looked a bit harder for information about this instead of trying to hunt down our source code (which would obviously be displayed prominently if we were open source), he could have established this fact quite easily. We want to get much further with our beta testing before we start worrying about all the additional work associated with setting up a proper open source community.
I have to confess that I don’t understand the uploading issue. I’m not sure that we were particularly unclear, but to be safe: what we mean by this is that, unlike centralized file hosting sites, you don’t have to wait to upload all your files when you want to share them. Instead, they are shared using a P2P network. I think perhaps the author honed in on one specific use case, which is when you share a file from the web. In order to ensure that the file is available when the recipient wants to download it, we store a local copy. I’m not sure, however, what (if anything) this has to do with uploading.
I guess the article is simply commenting on our investment, not criticizing it, although the tone is as negative as the rest of the story. We have a great business model that we will be implementing in future versions, but for strategic reasons we don’t want to be specific about this now. Stay tuned and all will be revealed in good time.
On the topic of SSL, once again the author doesn’t really claim that we don’t encrypt our communications in this way (we do), but the implication is that we’re somehow being less than upfront about this. I’d love to hear a bit more about what the exact charge is, if any. For the record, part of the AllPeers registration process involves getting a digital certificate and associated key pair, which are used to authenticate and encrypt all (yes, I said all) communication. We haven’t deployed our UDP implementation yet (we’ll be integrating it next week) but this also includes a strong encryption layer.
A lot of people have commented that some aspects of the user interface are too obstrusive. We’ve taken this to heart and we’re improving this. It’s beta software, as I mentioned, and we’re doing this as much as anything to hear from our users so that the final release will correspond to their expectations.
Yes, AllPeers is a large extension. We’re proud of the fact that we’re one of the first (if not the first) company to build what amounts to a real application on top of the fantastic Mozilla platform. We’re still tons smaller than other products that have used other platforms like .NET.
I don’t have much to say about our privacy policy. I think it speaks for itself. At present, we gather only email addresses as part of registration and we don’t verify them so if you’re worried about this, use a fake one.
We do use BitTorrent. This doesn’t mean that we have to share a file in random order, and in fact if you only have one source for the file (which is a very common use case for us) then it is downloaded in linear order as the author suggests. We also use HTTP in some instances where it could be more efficient. Our goal is not to use BitTorrent for its own sake, but rather to provide the best experience possible for our users, the majority of which we suspect won’t care in the slightest what underlying protocol is used or how it is implemented.
Is AllPeers centralized or decentralized? Neither, it’s a hybrid. We’ve attempted to get the best of both worlds by implementing our architecture in most efficient manner, and we will continue to do so. We’re not P2P zealots who think that everything has to be decentralized. We do keep things P2P when feasible because it requires less server intrastructure and can contribute to being more private and secure. But things like our registration server are centralized (as in the case of, say, Skype) because this is so much easier to do and there isn’t any obvious benefit to trying to create a decentralized implementation.
The only thing I immediately observed was that while it took some general quotation, I couldn’t find anything it was attacking specifically (as in quoting something and correcting it) This is why it’s so hard to respond to something like this, but I don’t think I want to make much of a response other then just post some observations (of course, this is minus my correction in their introductory paragraph.
Though reading responses from users put a smile on my face because they are taking what both sides are saying to how they personally feel. I’ll actually start with responses on the AllPeers Blog:
Zork:
I thought the Slyck article did a great job of describing your software, but it could have been a little less harsh about it.
I, for one, was pretty unimpressed with the extension.
mftrecords:
Allpeers is a piece of crap. Thank god for reviewers like this.
ZenBug:
I’m glad you clarified some of Slyck’s claims, but I have to admit that your constant fall-back on the “Beta” state of the software as a reason for its shortcomings is wearing thin with me.
There seem to be very obvious flaws with AllPeers that quite frankly should never have allowed the app to go public at this point: Can’t see what’s been/being uploaded, Can’t cancel a download (my work machine has been trying to download an mp3 from my home machine for a two weeks now, but can’t complete it because of our firewall). Aren’t features like that no-brainers for P2P apps?? See the forums for tons more “feature requests”.
I suspect that in this day and age, when everything the Almighty Google owns is a Beta version, for many startups, the term “Beta” seems to have taken on the definition, “Released long before it should have been.” I for one would have gladly waited another six months for all these bugs to be worked out.
And my biggest disappointment is that I’ve been plugging this app to all my friends for months, but now it’s out and they’ve tried it and decided it’s crap. So if/when all the criticisms are addressed, it’ll be that much harder to get them on board again.
(this was one of my favorite, if not, my favorite response to this whole issue)
P Mistan:
You said Slyck made ’silly’ claims but haven’t backed that up with specifics.
Allpeers is a victim of its own hype. Your marketing dept did a wonderful and fantastic job your coders couldn’t match.
Peter:
If you don’t verify email addresses, then why are you collecting them? It’s sort of an admission that you’re wasting people’s time. People hate that registration nonsense. It’s like going to a government office and they ask you to fill in your email address, and you say ‘why?’, and they say ‘because there’s a box for it here on the form. You need to complete the form.’
-Your overall tone seems to be that everyone else is wrong and just doesn’t understand.
I think the Slyck article was quite fair.
(in all fairness, there was positive feedback as well - this was the first user to give solely positive feedback that I noticed on the blog)
J:
Don’t worry Matt. First people are beating down your doors to get a taste, then they cry when its too hot to eat yet. I think you’re doing a bang-up job, and when it’s through with it’s beta I’m sure critics will calm down.
Now, here’s some responses from Slyck (and I am quite happy people have stood by me on this! 
)
muppet:
Would’nt touch it with a barge pole.
Torrentfreak:
great article.
about the “open source” issue. I talked to Matthew Gertner, Chief Technology Officer at Allpeers, and he said they will reveal the source later this year…
(for the above comment, please refer to this link I would have left that in the actual quote, but it wouldn’t be hotlinked, so I hotlinked it outside of the quote instead for convenience)
Torrentmama:
Wonderful article! But like Muppet, I’m staying away too!
SwordOfZork:
I was somewhat unimpressed with this software, as well as annoyed by how it practically high-jacks firefox by default. There are better ways to share files.
Vtaltos:
Having read both the Slyck article and the Allpeers response, I get the impression that Allpeers is indeed very pointless.
masukie:
I won’t install that shit. It is a fake ‘Company’. It is just about making money but they won’t tell you that directly!
(Note: below, Dazzle is talking to Matthew who is part of AllPeers)
Dazzle:
Matthew playing shoot the messenger is not a good business practice.
If your “service/product” is good and does as it claims then you should feel happy to sit back and be proud, it seems basic errors are evident in the software as it stands and losing your temper with those pointing them out is not cricket old bean.
When you have resolved the “Beta” issues then I,m sure you will be in an improved position to proclaim your service/product, I would focus on that soley and cut your reply to a small “sorry folks ironing out initial bugs” type notice, anything else is likely to undermine your credibility.
(second response of a user below)
TorrentMama:
WOW, just read the allpeers response… That was the most immature official company response I’ve ever seen in my life. Why not let the finished product speak for itself? OK- so you aren’t happy with the article- fine my fat neighbor isn’t happy that she’s unmarried. Trim the fat & let the rest shine, sitting around trying to explain why you have a thyroid problem isn’t going to catch you a husband. And that whiny I got my feelings hurt response isn’t going to gather any fans!
Drake:
I don’t think this review should be considered a hatchet job. It identifies various issues and poses questions about their business model.
I’m guessing that the business model will involve a simple centralized server approach similar to iTunes. Firefox now has a large userbase and companies try to exploit it by offering quick downloads through this extension. The offerings will probably be more of the same DRM’d crap that can be found on iTunes, but at least this extension allows people to share their own content with each other without restrictions.
Ickypoopy:
Yes, AllPeers is a large extension. We’re proud of the fact that we’re one of the first (if not the first) company to build what amounts to a real application on top of the fantastic Mozilla platform. We’re still tons smaller than other products that have used other platforms like .NET.
?!?!?!?!?!?!
Are they seriously trying to compare Mozilla to .NET?!?
lion7718:
Why make an extension at all….at 4MB they could have released the program on it’s own.
I really I have to think that they are using Firefox & it’s userbase to get this thing out there to the masses.
It’s interesting how much attention my article has recieved as I think this is the first company to respond to anything I have written. I’m curiously watching (like any other article really…) where this article will go.