The Magnet URI scheme is a de facto standard (instead of an open standard) defining a URI scheme for Magnet links, which mainly refer to resources available for download via peer-to-peer networks. Such a link typically identifies a file not by location, but by content -- more precisely, by the content's cryptographic hash value.
Since it specifies a file based on content or metadata, rather than by location, a Magnet link can be considered a kind of Uniform Resource Name, rather than the more common Uniform Resource Locators. Although it could be used for other applications, it is particularly useful in a peer-to-peer context, because it allows resources to be referred to without the need for a continuously available host.
Read more about Magnet URI Scheme: History, Use of Content Hashes, Design, Features and Clients
Famous quotes containing the words magnet and/or scheme:
“Yes, but I do not travel to find comfortable, rich, and hospitable people, or clear sky, or ingots that cost too much. But if there were any magnet that would point to the countries and houses where are the persons who are intrinsically rich and powerful, I would sell all, and buy it, and put myself on the road to-day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Your scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)