Everyone knows Web Search Engines but not so many are familiar with  the term "P2P Search Engines". And yet, many of us use them without  necessarily realizing it.

Indeed, as it is explained on SearchTools.com, Napster and Gnutella represent two current models of Peer-to-Peer Web searching. But they are far from being the only actors in this sector: Edgios will be joining the list as soon as it will be launched.

But we can already get a preview of this P2P Search Engine thanks to the which describes briefly some of its characteristics. But as well as any P2P-based utility, the real test of Edgios will start with its release since it will bring more users and really use the P2P technology.

Besides, on its current main page, Edgios claims to be "bringing the future of search" and describes itself as follows :

"Do any of the big search engines let you control what goes into the search index? Do they rank search results according to what real people want? No, they don't. But Edgios does. (...) Our entire approach to web search is based on you being in control, and on maintaining your anonymity."

Sounds promising, right?

Ipoque's study about Internet traffic is something everyone is looking at right now. As we talked about last week, ipoque's Internet Study 2007 offered us an analysis of the evolution of the Internet and more specifically of that of file sharing protocols.

The ars technica Website gives us another approach to the subject by looking at the preliminary results of the Internet Study 2008 which seems to focus more on the development of Direct Download Links (DDL) and on its impact on P2P traffic.

Indeed, what we can see for now is that DDL and streaming are currently experiencing the biggest growth with services like Rapidshare for DDL and Hulu for Web streaming being the main actors.

We will have to wait for the complete ipoque's analysis to talk more about  the matter, so we will keep you posted as soon as the 2008 study comes out.

From time to time it is good to sit and look at what is going on in the P2P environment. That's exactly what FileShareFreak did with its assessment of P2P file sharing protocols.

Its study, which takes the form of a listing of all the major file sharing methods, points out the positive and negative aspects of each of them. This list includes BitTorrent (public), BitTorrent (private), Gnutella Network (Limewire), Direct Connect (DC), eD2K/eMule, Usenet/Newsgroups, IRC, and DDL/RapidShare Sites.

Though you may recognize many of these tools, I don't think that you've tried them all. So this is why the assessment may come in handy. Indeed, even if you're satisfied with your current download experience, check it out. You never know, something even better may be out there...

So, have a great (and legal!) download. ;-)