Please Note: SHAUN wrote this of the "AFileDB.Exe", some time ago. I hope that Shaun will forgive me for the copy/paste/edit that I have used, here. I find it very difficult to believe that Shaun would permit any such use of AdWare, SpyWare or Trojans - even more so when it is remembered how easily found the exe is.

I, too, once worried about this exe.


"AfileDB is an ActiveX component I wrote that does the following things:

1. Scans your shared files (ONLY those in specified directories)

2. Processes the searches of the gnutella network

3. Does the "Pings" available from popup menus in the connections and search windows

4. Watches the directories for changes if you have that option enabled

5. Your webpage is built here too." [?]

"It's in a seperate exe for threading purposes, I experimented with some different methods, hence you may have seen multiple copies of it in some versions.

It is the CPU user of Gnotella. If you share many files, you can see it, as you add more files the CPU usage of AFileDB.exe will increase, increase the number of connections, and thus the number of searches, it will increase.

It DOES NOT contain any kind of spyware or other data gathering activities that you are unaware of except scanning your shared files and that is kept locally and is not even saved when you close the program, hence it rescans when it starts up.

The next version has DRAMATIC improvements in CPU usage by this component, the Ping functionality will not be in this component so that it does not access the internet in any way so as to cause people to suspect its true functionality.

I will state it again, Gnotella contains NO spyware/adware that does anything without your consent. The only possible exception to this is that when you start up it contacts gnotella.com and gets a file called updates.txt and displays it in the options window and tells you if a new version is available. This is for update purposes only to let users know a new version is out. I hope this acceptable, I could add an option to turn it off and still allow users to click the get news button to find out about a new version if people don't like that though.

I hope that clears it up..."

"...without it..." (the .exe) "...you would not be responding to anyone's searches, you can see that on the stats screen where you will see no new matches as the searches will only go into a black hole. I have no ideas about any users surfing habits or hardrive contents other than the files I find when I use Gnotella myself.

Shaun"