Grouper 1.4 for file Sharing!

Posted May 7, 2005

Rothe Blog Grouper Logo

Time to think about Peer to Peer (P2P) in a whole new light!

Chris came across this program a couple of weeks back, and now I am smitten with this program.

Grouper is a peer to peer program for sharing your files that allows you the explicit control of who you want to share files with. So, you would set up a group in “Grouper” and then you would invite a friend to join your group. Then you would be able to choose the files from your hard drive that you want to share and vice versa and you can easily swap them.

The interface is amazing!

You have so many options. You can fully customize your profile with cool icons, you can add comments to your files, you can browse the most popular files downloaded by your group, and so much more.

Some of the other awesome features

Tabbed transfer, group, and directory of files windows.

Built in encrypted chat functionality just like an instant messenger with people in your group.

A log of what files have been accessed and are currently being browsed.

A media plater to check out any music your friend is sharing, with playlist capabilities and more.

For a more complete list of capabilities, check out the Grouper website.

Now, you are not able to actually share music using Grouper. They save you from yourself for all of the copyright infringement stuff that happens when you give music to your friends. But from what I have read on the forums, there are ways around this, like zipping up your files to download in a different format, or temporarily renaming the files to download.

Here is a view of the interface.
Rothe Blog Grouper Screen Shot 1

Bottom Line!

If you ever share files with friends, but don’t want to be limited by email, this is a great program for you. Cool loading screen and all around slick and smooth interface, easy to setup and get moving, Grouper is for the hobbist who just wants to share photos with family or video, to the geek who wants to be able to control ever aspect of their P2P activities.