Often, such direct communication is made impossible or very difficult by firewalls or NAT devices. Such a virtual network can be useful to facilitate direct communication that applications like file sharing or gaming may need.

PeerVPN is a software that builds virtual ethernet networks between multiple computers.

Infinit - file sharing app with local encryption based on research made at the University of Cambridge.PeerVPN - the open source peer-to-peer VPN PeerVPN - the open source peer-to-peer VPN.

The following software titles have been discontinued.

Retroshare - a private F2F system based on PGP, implementing Turtle F2F file sharing.

GigaTribe - a private community-oriented file-sharing program.

Direct Connect - file sharing and chat using private hubs.

Some software, such as WASTE, can be configured to create either group-based or F2F networks. Group-based systems allow any user to connect to any other, and thus they cannot grow in size without compromising their users' privacy. Friend-to-friend systems only allow connections between users who know one another, but may also provide automatic anonymous forwarding. Private peer-to-peer systems can be divided into friend-to-friend (F2F) and group-based systems. Alternatively, users can exchange passwords or cryptographic keys with friends to form a decentralized network. This can be achieved by using a central server such as a Direct Connect hub to authenticate clients.

Private peer-to-peer (P2P) systems are peer-to-peer (P2P) systems that allow only mutually trusted peers to participate.

Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients.

Free peer to peer vpn