questions about download speeds

[sweet release]

hey.

i've 2 questions about downloading with mazilla firefox.

1:. how come 1 mint it says there is 10 minits left to download, and then it goes up to 1 hour 39 something like that?. what causes the times to keep varying. sometimes it will go up and down through out the download.

also, if my internet goes down and i still have the download open, will it resume when it's back up?. see.. it's stuck on 50 percent, but when i go to remove it it says that the file is in use.

just curious

thanks

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by sweet release

1:. how come 1 mint it says there is 10 minits left to download, and then it goes up to 1 hour 39 something like that?. what causes the times to keep varying. sometimes it will go up and down through out the download.

Firefox will calculate the average time based on the file size and the average download speed as a real-time calculation. If a server gets busy, the download speed will drop and so Firefox will recalculate the time based on the new speed. The time calculation is only really accurate when the download speed is consistent. Either way, it's only an estimate.

also, if my internet goes down and i still have the download open, will it resume when it's back up?. see.. it's stuck on 50 percent, but when i go to remove it it says that the file is in use.

I think it depends on the server. If either Firefox or your ISP severs the connection to the download server (whether by closing the program or dropping the Internet connection), the server may or may not allow you to resume the download. It's a setting made possible on the other end.

[sweet release]

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Firefox will calculate the average time based on the file size and the average download speed as a real-time calculation. If a server gets busy, the download speed will drop and so Firefox will recalculate the time based on the new speed. The time calculation is only really accurate when the download speed is consistent. Either way, it's only an estimate.

I think it depends on the server. If either Firefox or your ISP severs the connection to the download server (whether by closing the program or dropping the Internet connection), the server may or may not allow you to resume the download. It's a setting made possible on the other end.

thanks for the info

i'll bear it all in mind

[Studentech]

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

I think it depends on the server. If either Firefox or your ISP severs the connection to the download server (whether by closing the program or dropping the Internet connection), the server may or may not allow you to resume the download. It's a setting made possible on the other end.

It may be, though I've never heard of it done like that. More often than not the downloader will be using a download manager that will allow pausing of the downloads and more. So if the download is interrupted, it will simply pause the download. Firefox comes with one standard (and has since firefox 1.9) so interruptions shouldn't be a problem.