Abstract: A network-based file-sharing system includes a first host computer and a plurality of other host computers, each host computer having a processing unit and a storage. The first host computer is programmed to generate from the plurality of other host computers a list of other host computers where a user-selected file is stored. The first host computer is further programmed to select a second host computer from the list of other host computers based on an indication of a transfer time from the second host computer to the first host computer and to retrieve at least a portion of the particular file from the second host computer using User Datagram Protocol data packets.