Paul Johnson wrote:
csj <csj@zapo.net> writes:A number of media files I want to download are available only on bittorrent format. I know about the advantages of bittorrent for broadband users with underutilized bandwidth. But I'm on dialup. My bandwidth gets saturated with a simple "wget -c linux.iso" (a 52K modem that feels more like 45K). So are there any disadvantages to using bittorent with a plain dialup line?You will never finish the download. Your connection is too slow.
I routinely finish 200M-350M bittorrent downloads over dialup plus a 700M knoppix bittorrent download once. Granted it took a while, but as long as the torrent is popular enough that it will be available for a while it is doable. The biggest problems I've run into is that it saturates your connection much more 'effectively' than normal downloads, it sometimes dies when you lose your connection and needs to be restarted[which in turn will cause you to 'lose' a couple of megs since partial 'pieces' don't seem to resume], and your download rate will be about half that of a normal download[at best]. But if it is your only source for the file...
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature