What is P2P? P2P stands for "Peer-to-Peer," meaning direct communication between devices. In a traditional internet setup, you first upload a file to a server, and the other device then downloads it from that server. With P2P, devices can connect to each other and transfer data directly between them. A central service may still help the devices find and connect to each other, but the actual data transfer can happen directly between the devices. The roots of this idea go back to distributed computer systems developed in the 1970s. P2P became widely known in 1999 with Napster, which allowed users to share files stored on their own computers with one another. Later, systems such as Gnutella and BitTorrent took the idea much further. Today, P2P is used not only for file sharing, but also for communication, content distribution, collaboration, and many other distributed applications. File Transfer uses the same idea in its simplest form: connect two devices, choose your file, send it directly to the other device.