Marcel Bartels said:
How do you accelerate a download? I have a line of about 768 kbit, do
you mean there is a "download accelerator" software, which changes the
kopper in my phone line, so it get's more throughput?
How does the accelerating work?
You can not achieve higher speeds than your own connection allows.
For example with a 56k modem you get around 6kB/s at the most, no matter
what you do.
The download accelerator, a download program, is only effective when the
download speed is limited by other factors, like the server you are
downloading from, or the net connections on the way the file has to pass on
the way to your connection.
If the server you are downloading from gives you only 2kB/s you can use a
download program to start downloading 2-3 parts of the same file
simultaneously, and you get the full speed of 6kB/s with your 56k modem.
If you have a broadband connection chances are higher that you have use for
a downloader program, because you might have a limit of 200kB/s in your own
connection, but the servers you are getting files from are giving lower
speeds, like 20kB/s.
Then you can open 5 threads, that is, downloading 5 parts of the same file
simultaneously, and you get 5*20kB/s = 100kB/s speed for the whole file.
A word of warning though, some servers have a limited number of
simultaneously downloading users, or limited total capacity, so you are
locking others out while you are occupying 5 download threads
simultaneously.
At some sites you may get punished for using multile threads for this
reason, they may ban you (your IP number) automatically if the server is
set to do this.
You can read warnings against using download accelerators at some file
server sites, often privately owned special servers.
At big university servers it is no problem to use multiple threads.
They have the capacity to handle it.
There is seldom any gain in using more than 3 threads for downloading a
file, and downloaders are only meaningful to use for really big files.
For smaller files your browser is faster and easier to use.
All modern browsers I know have a built-in resume function, when the server
you are downloading from support the resume function.
