What is ADC, anyway?

ADC is a messaging protocol used in a peer-to-peer network, which is heavily inspired by the Direct Connect network. It consists mainly of two types of network nodes; clients and hubs.

Unlike other peer-to-peer networks, ADC is centralized and community controlled. Clients connect to one or more hubs to communicate with other clients. It can be compared to super nodes (or ultra nodes) in other networks, except the hubs do not openly communicate between each other. The advantage to such a design is that the hubs are in control on who can access the network, and multiple private networks can exist.

The ADC protocol specification is developed by the ADC project hosted on sourceforge.

Another interesting site is the ADC portal, which aims to collect resources, documentation and be a contact point for developers of various ADC related technologies.