Gnutella ( /nʌˈtɛlə/ with a silent g, but often /ɡnʌˈtɛlə/) (possibly by analogy with the GNU Project) is a large peer-to-peer network which, at the time of its creation, was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model. It celebrated a decade of existence on March 14, 2010 and has a user base in the millions for peer-to-peer file sharing.
In June 2005, gnutella's population was 1.81 million computers increasing to over three million nodes by January 2006. In late 2007, it was the most popular file sharing network on the Internet with an estimated market share of more than 40%.
Read more about Gnutella: History, Design, Protocol Features and Extensions, Gnutella2, Software