lets see

this just happens to be my fav topic btw
Well here is my take on the things
(i will update this post soon with links and screen shots of all the appz and the networks that are there. But the task of making the thread of that magnitude is a massive task so plz give me some time. till that time manage with the lite text version

)
Edonkey network
Biggest network among conventioanl p2p's (excluding bt and irc) Awesome for finding movies and old hard to find things eg music, games appz etc.
The biggest con is the slow speed. And a huge patience.
Clients:
Official edonkey client
emule
emule mods
Fastrack network
kazaa, Klite++, imesh
An old network. Second to edonkey. Also was the most popular. Losing popularity fast cos of huge amount of fakes.(supposedly by riaa and mpaa)
Gnutella network
Shareaza, limewire
Again this is a grt network. Smaller but faster. especially gnu2 network is the fastest to this day.
Warez network
An up and coming network. But not huge right now.
Ok that was about networks which this thread is not about btw
At the moment i will say this
# Try bittorrent for everything you want. Esp if you are on fast connection and even if you on dialup. BT is fast and is the fastest and stablest network. The grt thing is that you don't have the problems with queues so downloads start instantly. Is very safe as far as fakes go. Its popularity can be guaged by the fact that recently there have been major strikes by MPAA against major sites running and hosting torrents. BUT ITS NOT DEAD. So this is my pick.
# IRC..... No this is not for geekz. People just get daunted by Mirc. If you are one of them who is afraid with the complexity of the network just use irc chat extension of firefox. Its much easier. See my firefox mega thread. Anyway this is the best place to get anything. Music, movies, appz , games, or bookz... there is no better place then irc. Very fast but you have queue probs too. Definately must try
# DCC++
If you on broadband, go for this. HUGE HUGE hubs. Very fast and very cool. The flipper, you need huge shares to join hubs(usually 10GB is min) But its fast and has almost everything
# Shareaza
For just about everything and for dialuppers.
#WinMX
Just superb for music. Must if you want to use p2p for music download
In the end, the best is try all networks. Use the one that suits you. But try all.
A detailed tutorial and more individual reviews of network soon.