BitTorrent is no longer the number one source of download traffic on the Internet: here's what it has surpassed

In an age where streaming is becoming the norm and cloud storage is becoming increasingly popular, the P2P file sharing protocol BitTorrent is quickly losing ground. According to the latest Global Internet Phenomena report from Sandvine, a Canadian broadband management company, BitTorrent is no longer the “king” of online download traffic.

to'investigation (mentioned From TorrentFreak) reveals that, BitTorrent doesn't even appear in our download traffic rankingsWhile videos and social media account for more than half of the traffic managed by fixed and mobile communications. As for download traffic, P2P has been displaced by cloud storage applications, FaceTime, Google, and YouTube as the main drivers of primary traffic. On mobile connections, BitTorrent is not among the top ten applications in terms of traffic.

BitTorrent starts to disappear from Internet traffic rankings

When calculating total download traffic in the United States, to be precise, Only 4% are represented by BitTorrentThe same service represented a third of the total in 2013, and remained the dominant source of download traffic in the following years. If you go back in time, before Web 2.0, BitTorrent handled 35% of download traffic. At that time, in fact, file sharing over P2P networks was the main driver of traffic, as no other service typically handled such large amounts of data.

However, with the growth of video streaming, peer-to-peer file sharing protocol traffic has become a drop in today's massive sea of ​​data. Even among hackers, file sharing is no longer as important as it used to beas most pirate sites now also rely on live streaming.

Sandvine understands that BitTorrent remains a file “important factor” Because they generate traffic from a small number of users, including not only hackers but also academics who share large amounts of data. However, the company expects BitTorrent to be in the traffic rankings “May decline as users move to the cloud” Or consultation “Content via streaming services”.

In short, while BitTorrent could still have a future in some sectors, Its dominance of the Internet traffic landscape is destined to become a thing of the past.