how exactly peer to peer(p2p) technology works?

how exactly peer to peer(p2p) technology works?

exchange amoung peers...

one peer communicates with another peer

Instead of downloading from one central server, files are shared and transferred between thousands of people's computers.

to understand p2p I'll explain an example for Yahoo! Messenger and MSN MessengerU r talking with someonethen he sends u a file----Till Here the Requests and Chat is submitted through the Messenger Server-----Then The transfer is started in which u r connected directly to the user (Peer) and getting the file based on ur and his bandwidth only and not related to the serverThis is how peer2peeer worksThe server only lists the users and their files'but all the transfers are not handled by it...u download files directly from usersand while u r downloading u can check that u r not only connected to the p2p server but also other usersby typing "netstat -n" in the command prompt window (Run--->CMD)