ALDI

Previously, Aldi Süd in Austria did a pay-as-you-go service called “yesss!” [2] with Connect Austria's One. (data for eDonkey network). This phone offer is available on either a “starter set”, which is a SIM card and €10 (US$ 12.01) worth of credit at €19,99 (US$ 24.02), or a Medion mobile phone [1] with a SIM card at €59,99 (US$ 72.11). Different shades of blue give an idea how well-spread different parts are. They offered rates of €0,05 (approx US$ 0.06) per minute/SMS to other Aldi Talk customers and €0,15 (approx US$ 0.18) to landlines and other mobile phones. Red indicates a part missing in all known sources. On the 7th December 2005, based on their well known brand, Aldi (both Nord and Süd) in Germany introduced a pay-as-you-go mobile phone company Aldi Talk, piggybacking on the e-plus network. The color coding is similar to the one used with the progress bar.

Recently the similar Lidl chain has grown faster than Aldi; its major difference in business practice is that it stocks a few name brands. Each shared file shows its availability in the form of a bar. In Germany Aldi is occasionally jokingly called Feinkost Albrecht (approximate translation: Albrecht Deli). Yellow denotes a pending (already requested) part. stores are the only ones to offer customer toilets. Green parts are currently uploading. Aldi's U.S. Silver ones are parts still missing.

and British supermarkets. Black are parts this user has already completed. close around 19:00 weeknights, earlier on Saturday, and most remain closed on Sunday, in contrast to the late or 24-hour opening times of many U.S. It shows the progress of the file this user is downloading. and U.K. This bar appears in the upload queue if supported by the other client. On the other hand, Aldi stores in the U.S. • zz - Currently transferring sources excellent.

Some (but by no means all) of its German outlets, particularly those in shopping centres, now stay open until the revised legal closing time of 20:00. • + aa - Number of Asked for another file sources (only shown when Advanced Controls is enabled). Aldi stores often have fairly limited opening hours, such as were restricted by law (until 18:30 weeknights and 14:00 Saturdays) in Germany until these laws were relaxed somewhat in 1996 and 2004. • yy - Total number of sources. However in other countries, such as Britain, France, and the U.S., Aldi stores are far smaller than those countries' typical supermarkets or hypermarkets, and tend to be free-standing, purpose-built structures. • xx - Number of useful sources. The company's stores in Germany are similar in size to those of competing supermarkets, and they can often be found in shopping centres or elsewhere where retail units of this size are common. The four values xx/yy+aa (zz) displayed after the progress bar is the source count for this file and shows following information.

Aldi stores worldwide are approximately the same size. Yellow denotes a pending (already requested) part. Aldi does accept MasterCard, Bankcard and Visa in Australia for an additional 1% surcharge. Green parts are currently downloading. Like most German retailers, Aldi does not accept major credit cards. Silver stands for parts this source is also missing. Debit cards are also accepted in the USA. Blue are parts you still need for this download.

These include the system of metal gates and turnstiles forcing customers to exit through the checkout, the practice of charging for shopping bags, and the fact that Aldi until recently accepted only cash (since 2004, German stores have begun to accept the Maestro debit card). Black indicates parts you already have. and Britain. (shaded style). Many Aldi practices are common in German supermarkets but largely unique to Aldi in markets such as the U.S. (flat style). Many consider it to be derogatory to shop at Aldi, and as a result a lot of students will not admit to shopping there if they do. Here the colours have a slightly different meaning:.

In the United Kingdom, Aldi (just like it's rival Lidl) is often the centre of jokes regarding the wealth of a person, particularly with the younger generation. To see the sources just double-click a download (or single click, depends on the settings in Options -> Display ). Despite this, and the strong price competition between such British retailers on precisely the basic goods Aldi sells, the firm apparently remains profitable. If you expand the download you see each of its sources with their corresponding bar. In countries such as the UK, where the level of service and presentation of mainstream supermarkets is arguably lower than in Aldi's native Germany, Aldi's public reputation does not appear to have improved in the same way. A dark red or blue progress bar denotes a stopped or paused download. This shift in public perception was boosted by a series of cookbooks that only used Aldi ingredients, which led to the emergence of a kind of Aldi fandom into the German mainstream. (shaded style).

Many individual consumers "discovered" that the poor reputation of Aldi's products was apparently undeserved. (flat style). After German reunification, many German middle class families had to cut down their spending and Aldi's popularity and public acceptance grew. A green bar stands for a completed download. Being held in such low esteem by many did not seem to dent Aldi's profits however. (shaded style). Loyal German soccer fans, ashamed of their favorite team's performance, were known to wear Aldi bags over their heads as a gag. (flat style).

Aldi's customers were alleged to be only poor people who couldn't afford to shop elsewhere. The green bar on top shows the total download progress of this file. In West Germany, before about 1990, Aldi shops were often ridiculed as being cheap shops selling poor-quality goods. Yellow denotes a part being downloaded. However, in Australia select stores do have hand baskets available. The darker the blue, the more sources have this part. Aldi generally does not offer hand baskets. Different shades of blue represent the availability of this part in the sources.

Many, if not most customers, however, ignore this rule, not least because it would force them to join the queue to leave the store even if they hadn't purchased anything. Red indicates a part missing in all known sources. This is why Aldi stores in Germany insist that customers use a cart; the customer is expected to bag groceries at a separate bench. Black shows the parts of the file you already have. Once products have been scanned, they are put directly in the shopping cart, which has a special dock on the counter for this purpose. (shaded style). An advantage of this was that the cashiers could already type in the prices of all the articles on the conveyer belt even if the customers were blocking the process by not putting the articles quickly enough back into their shopping cart. (flat style).

Aldi was, however, a latecomer to barcode scanners, and many stores only added them in 2004; previously, cashier clerks would manually enter a three-digit code for each item from memory (Aldi Nord) or the price (Aldi Süd). Each download in the Transfers tab has a coloured bar to show current file availability and progress. Cashiers save additional time by preparing the most likely amount of change while the customer is still searching for money in his/her wallet. The credit is calculated in the following way:. Products have very long barcodes covering several sides of the packaging to speed this procedure. These factors are all expressed in an integer value, and their total gives a "score" which is used to rank the users in the queue. Aldi's checkout procedure is highly standardized, with checkout operators sitting down in swivel chairs, passing products through a two-sided barcode scanner. A user's position in other clients' queues depends on various factors, including the time they have been waiting in the queue, the upload priority for the requested file, and the user's credit.

Aldi do not have publicly listed telephones in stores to minimize the time checkouts are unutilised. To view this information, right click on any user and choose View Details. However, in the USA, Aldi advertises regularly via weekly newspaper inserts and Aldi television commercials have begun airing on the TBS network, and in the UK print and television ads appeared in mid-2005. The values used can be seen in the client's details dialog. It claims this is a cost savings that can be passed on to consumers. The modifiers are calculated from the amount of transferred data between the two clients. Aldi has a policy in Germany of not advertising, apart from a weekly list of special prices called Aldi informiert (Aldi informs) that is distributed in stores, by direct mail, and sometimes printed in local newspapers. The more a user uploads to a client the faster he advances in this client's queue.

As a result, Aldi earned a great deal of customer goodwill. The credit system provides a major modifier to this waiting time by taking the upload and download between the two clients into consideration. In contrast to other supermarkets, Aldi prominently listed "before and after" prices on posters in stores for months after the introduction, and generally rounded its euro prices down. The strict queue system in eMule is based on the waiting time a user has spent in the queue. Consumers believed that many merchants had used the currency changeover as a cover to increase prices, often substantially; this was later confirmed by independent studies. uploading to other clients. Aldi also profited from the introduction of the euro in Germany and other countries. The credit system is used to reward users contributing to the network, i.e.

("Top quality at incredibly low prices" is an Aldi marketing slogan.). Often features first debuted in a mod later find their way into the official version. Aldi has successfully carved its own (actually rather large) niche with this approach: While shoppers may not normally like shopping in a bland or industrial-looking (and possibly congested) store, such utter lack of frills has become part of the accepted norm with Aldi, and consumers appear to be willing to accept it because of the "incredible value" they expect to get in exchange. Other mods follow official eMule releases, and make their own releases based on each new release of the official version. These and other cost-cutting strategies save Aldi money and arguably the general price level in Aldi stores — as compared to more "upmarket" supermarkets — appears to show that at least some or most of these savings are passed on to consumer. It does not have Kademlia protocol implemented, but proponents of this mod credit it for a better GUI and an ability to achieve better download speeds than the official version. However, due to the efficient checkout system, a long queue does not necessarily translate into longer waiting times than in other supermarkets. A popular mod of this type is eMule Plus.

Long queues at the checkout counter are also relatively common, reflecting Aldi's minimal staffing levels, as well as the competitive situation in Aldi's native Germany, where long supermarket checkout lines are part of daily life. Some mods started as a fork of a eMule code, and then continued to develop independently of the official version. When all items on a pallet have been sold, it is replaced. As a popular open source program, eMule has many variants, usually called mods. Aldi's "strictly no frills" approach is evident for instance in that typically Aldi stores do not decorate aisles — or even fill shelves for that matter: Pallets of the products on offer are commonly simply parked alongside the aisles, and customers picking up products will gradually empty them. This limitation doesn't exist in Kad network, therefore this network is more suitable for users that share big collections of files. Although Aldi emphasizes low prices, reports from a German consumer watchdog suggest that this does not negatively impact the quality of Aldi products. Some servers also limit the number of files that can be shared by any particular user.

American Aldi stores also feature bargain-priced, gourmet foods imported from Germany. Therefore, it is more resistant to a large-scale network loss. Aldi mainly sells exclusively produced, custom-branded products (often identical to and produced by major brands) with brand names including "Grandessa" and "Fit and Active". Kad network is self-organising and tunes itself for best possible performance depending on the number of users and their connection qualities. Aldi is the largest wine retailer in Germany. Servers can only handle a certain amount of users and should a large server go down the network is severely handicapped. In the past some of Aldi's early computer offers, created some kind of hysteria in Germany, with all available items sold in only a few hours. The main goal of the Kad network is to be independent of servers and improve scalability.

The specials are only available in strictly limited quantities and for a limited timeframe (one week). Both networks have totally different concepts for achieving the same: Searching for files and finding sources to a file. Although not always available, but regulary put up for sale are clothing, toys, flowers, gifts. With the release of 0.47a, this limit was raised to 256GB, but only for clients supporting it (currently just eMule and aMule). Additionally to the standard assortment Aldi also has weekly special offers, some of them on more expensive products such as electronics, appliances or computers, usually from Medion. This was an inherent limitation of the ed2k protocol. Also it allowed Aldi to avoid the use of price tags even before the introduction of barcode scanners (see below). eMule versions before 0.47a cannot share files larger than about 4 GB.

This increases the numbers of sales for each article and also allows Aldi stores to be smaller than supermarkets which cover the same range of products but with more diversity. eMule includes a feature that limits download and upload speeds, so that they do not exceed the limits set by the user. One reason for Aldi's success is that the number of brands is very limited, you usually don't find more than two different brands for one kind of product and often only one. Also, many known "leecher" clients are often banned from the downloading through various means by eMule's mods (banning is not supported in official version). Aldi specializes in staple items such as food, beverages, sanitary articles and other inexpensive household items. Furthermore, attempting to circumvent the uploading feature can possibly slow a user's download, as he will get worse credits from uploaders.
Aldi Süd operates in. Although there are many mods of eMule, it is hard to find one that doesn't enforce the second feature, which is a part of official eMule policy.

Aldi Nord operates in. This limitation does not apply if the maximum upload speed is set to 10K per second or more. In principle, the two firms share nothing but the name and a similar corporate identity; however, they describe their relationship as a "friendly alliance" and there appear to be agreements between the two insofar that they do not compete directly with each other and (except for Germany) never both operate in the same countries. 2) Users are forced to share their bandwidth, thus increasing network's data stream: The official version of eMule forces the users to set their maximum download speed to no more than four times their maximum upload speed. The companies have since expanded internationally, into other European, North American, and Australian markets. The recipient is forced to share in this way until the download is complete. The chains initially covered the respective different regions of the then-West Germany. 1) Users are forced to share files: Shared files larger than 9500 KB are divided and downloaded in parts, so that a recipient starts to share the parts of the file already downloaded even before the download of the whole file is complete.

Thus today, Aldi consists of Aldi Nord (Aldi North) (where tobacco sales were deemed to be acceptable) and Aldi Süd (Aldi South) (where they were not; however Aldi Süd began selling tobacco products in 2003). eMule and other programs on eDonkey network support the network in two basic ways:. In the year 1961, the then-Aldi chain of supermarket stores split into two sister companies (each belonging to one of the brothers) over a dispute whether to sell cigarettes and other tobacco products at the checkout. This is accomplished by a complex calculation of the possible distance to the target client by asking other clients for the shortest route to it. Back then, it comprised only one small food shop. So the goal of any kind of search is to find those clients that have the responsibility for the current search topic. The company was founded in 1946 by the brothers Karl and Theo Paul Albrecht in Essen, Germany. The clients hash determines the specific keywords or sources.

. Each client in the Kad network works as a server for certain keywords or sources. Its spartan stores with low prices on a limited range of goods can now be found in more than a dozen countries. Since every client is identified by a unique hash value, the idea of Kademlia is to associate a certain “responsibility” based on this hash. Historically, Aldi is said to have been Germany's first real discount supermarket. There are no servers to keep track of clients and the files they share so it has to be done by each participating client in the network – in essence, every client is also a small server. The company's name stands for Albrecht-Discount, using the founders' last name. Be it a search for filenames, for sources of a download or for other users, all work pretty much the same.

It is actually two separate companies but is commonly referred to as one. In this network it does not matter what you search for. Aldi is an international hard discount supermarket chain based in Germany. Buddies are other Kad clients who have status open and work as a relay for connections, that the firewalled user cannot manage. Kwiksave (UK Only). From version v.44a on, the Kad network supports a Buddy for firewalled users. Netto (1200 stores). If you are not freely contacted, you are given a firewalled status.

Lidl (5000 stores). If you can be freely contacted, you are assigned an ID (similar to a HighID) and given an open status. USA. This process is very similar to the HighID/LowID check on the servers. United Kingdom. Once a client is in the network, the client then requests for other clients to determine if it can be contacted freely. Switzerland. This is called a Boot Strap.

Slovenia (where it operates under the name Hofer). The only thing needed to connect to this network is the IP and port of any eMule client already connected. Ireland. (based on Kademlia protocol). Austria (where it operates under the name Hofer). Sources are other clients who have at least downloaded one entire part (9.28 MB) of the file matching the hash. Australia. The server looks up the file’s hash value in its database and returns the clients it knows for having it.

Southern Germany. Once they are in the Download list, eMule first queries the local (connected) server then all other servers in the network for sources to that particular download. Spain. Downloads can be added by eMule’s search function or a special eD2k link format offered on many websites. Portugal (coming soon). mp3 files). The Netherlands. Note that there are fake servers in the network that do not return any results for certain type of searches (e.g.

Luxembourg. Each server looks up the keyword in its local database and returns any file names (with the hash value) that matches the keyword. France. If the search is a global search (searches all the servers within the network), it will take longer but have more results. Denmark. If it’s a local search (searches only the server you are connected to), searches are quicker but will have fewer results. Belgium. A search can either be local or global.

Northern Germany. Once connected to the network, the client can search for keywords in filenames. The server adds the filenames and hash values you sent to its database. After the ID is assigned, eMule will send a list of all shared files to the server. If communication is blocked, the server assigns your client a low ID.

If yes, the server assigns your client a so-called high ID. When connecting your client to a server, the server checks to see if other clients can freely connect to your client. Each client must be connected to a server to enter the network. The key to this network is the eD2k server.

(eD2k :EDonkey network). For already compressed files this is likely to be the raw file, while uncompressed files are likely to result in zlib compressed data to be transmitted. Then it chooses the smaller set of data to transmit. Before sending data eMule attempts to compress the data with [zlib] set at maximum compression.

If a client already has most of a chunk, however, it may choose to request the rest of that chunk first because only complete chunks can be shared. Clients usually request the chunk that fewest other sources have to aid distribution of the file through the network; otherwise rare chunks may generate a bottleneck. Once a client reaches the top of such a queue, the clients contact each other and transfer begins. Each client maintains a "download queue" of other clients who are requesting files for download.

other clients who are sharing that file), a client contacts each of those sources to request the file. After determining sources for a file (i.e. This user identification is highly secured by a public / private key handshake to prevent misuse. Like the file hash, each user in the network gets a unique and permanent user hash.

A file's hash value is computed by first computing the MD4 checksum of each chunk, and then computing the MD4 checksum of the string of those chunks' checksums concatenated with each other. Files are broken into "chunks" of 9.28 MB each (the last chunk may be smaller if the file size is not exactly divisible by the chunk size). This allows each user to find all sources to a particular file no matter what file name each user has given the file. All files are given a hash value that depends on the file's contents, but not its filename.

It is recommended to change the default ports of eMule to higher numbers (for example 20000 instead of 4662), because recently many ISPs are throttling default P2P ports resulting in slow performance. eMule is now considered a stable product, and new versions are not released as often as they used to be - 2 to 3 months is now a typical time interval between releases. The 0.46b version added the creation and management of "collection" files, which contain a set of links to files intended to be downloaded as a set. Other recent additions include: the ability to run eMule from a user account with limited privileges (thus enhancing security), and intelligent corruption handling (so that a corrupted chunk, 9.28 MB in size, does not need to be re-downloaded entirely).

Some users have complained that it leads to a loss of active sources and subsequently slows download speed. Unavailable IPs are banned for a time period from 15 to 45 minutes. After adding an IP to the "Bad source list", the application treats this IP as a "dead" IP. The application adds an IP address to this list after one unsuccessful connection.

In new versions, a "Bad source list" was added. Also added in recent versions were "Unicode Search" (allowing for searches for files in non-Latin alphabets) and the ability (not supported in Kad Network) to search servers for files with complete sources of unfinished files. This network has an implementation of the Kademlia protocol, which does not rely on central servers as the eDonkey network does. Recent versions (v0.40+) of eMule have added support for the Kad Network.

The official web site is supported by 7 web developers and 4 moderators. Currently the project is staffed by 16 people: 2 developers, 2 project managers (including the founder Breitkreuz), 3 testers, 9 debug testers. Since its inception, eMule has been downloaded by over 85 million people. The eMule project website started up on December 8, 2003.

The "Credit System" was implemented for the first time on September 14, 2002 in version 0.19a. It was first released as a binary on August 4, 2002 at version 0.05a. The source was first released at version 0.02 and it was published on SourceForge on July 6, 2002. Over time 7 more developers joined the effort.

Merkur) who was dissatisfied by the original eDonkey2000 client. The eMule project was started on May 13, 2002 by Hendrik Breitkreuz (a.k.a. . eMule is coded in Visual C++ .NET using the Microsoft Foundation Classes and because it is a popular open-source program, hundreds of eMule mods (modifications of the original eMule) have appeared on the Internet.

Matching file sources is verified through the use of the MD4 algorithm. Recently, many of the sites which provide these links have been taken offline by authorities due to accusations of copyright infringement, as well as a questionable legality of the links they provide. These links ensure that the file being downloaded shares the same hash, and therefore is not a "fake". Another feature of eMule is the ability to accept "ed2k" links from a web browser and begin downloading the file(s) these links refer to.

Furthermore eMule transmits data in (Zlib-)compressed form to save bandwidth. The distinguishing features of eMule are the direct exchange of sources between client nodes, fast recovery of corrupted downloads, and the use of a credit system to reward frequent uploaders. eMule runs on Microsoft Windows; however, its codebase forms the basis for a Linux client, xMule, and a multiplatform client, aMule. eMule is open source software released under the GNU General Public License.

In computing, eMule is a peer to peer file sharing application that works with both eDonkey and Kad Network and has more features than the eDonkey client. Number of concurrent shared files: ~600 million. latest users statistics can be found at : Slyck.com). Number of concurrent users : 3 - 5 million (correct number is unknown since many new servers are faking their number of users.

Your own credits cannot be displayed. This prevents faking the credits. Your own credits are saved by the client who owes you the credit. The unique user hash is used to identify the client.

Credits are stored in the clients.met file. They are exchanged between two specific clients. Credits are not global. Not supporting clients will grant you no credits when you upload to them.

It does not matter if the client supports the credit system or not. All Clients uploading to you are rewarded by the credit system. Otherwise, the credit value is x. If x is greater than 10, the credit value is 10.

If x is less than 1, the credit value is 1. Call it x. Out of those two values, choose the one that is lower. Calculate the following value: Square root of total uploaded data + 2.

Calculate the following value: total uploaded data × 2 / total downloaded data. Otherwise: