P2P Networking

Overview

P2P Networking is a component that enables other applications to use Peer-to-Peer functionality. P2P Networking is bundled with Kazaa v2.5.2 but is not required for its operation. There is no option to opt-out during the installation of Kazaa; you will get P2P Networking whether you want it or not. If P2P Networking was installed this way it will only show up in the Control Panel's "Add/Remove Programs" and in the task manager's process list. If you downloaded P2P Networking from the developer's site, it will also show as a white or green icon in the system tray.

According to the vendors documentation content is not pushed to your computer. You will only make content available that you, or the application using P2P networking has downloaded.

P2P Networking v1.24 uses 2 up to 9.9 MB of primary memory when tested on Windows 2000 with no upload or download activity. P2P Networking can use, by default, up to 256 MB of your hard drive space for the cached files. This setting can be changed.

To clarify, P2P Networking does not spy on you and it does not open pop-up windows, though it will use your system resources as described above. I think there are a few thing that could make the P2P Networking better. The first improvement would be to allow the user to opt-out during the installation of Kazaa. According to polls done here, 59% of the users that have P2P Networking installed on their systems are not aware of it. P2P Networking is mentioned in the Kazaa EULA, but the notice could obviously be more explicit, which would be the second improvement. The third improvement concerns the uninstall procedure, where it is unclear what will happen if you decide to uninstall P2P Networking. At the time of writing, P2P Networking state that uninstalling may prevent Kazaa from working. Uninstalling P2P Networking on my lab computer did not stop Kazaa from working.

P2P Networking installs in "%SystemDir%\P2P Networking\".
Note: %SystemDir% is a variable (?). By default, this is C:\Windows\System (Windows 95/98/Me), C:\WINNT\System32 (Windows NT/2000), or C:\Windows\System32 (Windows XP).

Classification

Bundled software

Files

P2P Networking.exe, marshal.dll

If you have any of the files related to P2P Networking on your system, please send them for additional analysis. Generally, I have only analysed a few versions for each software component listed at this web site. With your help I will be able to look at both old and more recent versions of the P2P Networking software. Thank you very much for your time!

Log references

Log 14 Log 37

Vendor

Joltid

Privacy policy

Joltid privacy policy

Detection

Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner does not detect P2P Networking.

Uninstall notice for P2P Networking

Notice that removing P2P Networking may cause the program that bundled it to not function as intended.

Uninstall procedure

Uninstall P2P Networking from "Add/Remove Programs" in the Windows® Control Panel. Notice that uninstalling it can break the programs that use the peer-two-peer component. If you run into problems uninstalling P2P Networking, please contact the vendor for support. Do not uninstall P2P Networking if you value the service that it offers.

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Contact information for P2P Networking's vendor

In order to provide correct, accurate and updated information about P2P Networking I encourage the vendor to contact me if any part of this write-up needs a revision.