Direct vs Peer-based Downloads

If you were to sum up downloads into their most basic categories, there would be two options for downloading files: direct downloads and p2p, or peer to peer, downloads. Here is a bit of information about each of these options that people use on a daily basis to get the files they want.

Browser downloads, download managers and more - Direct Downloads

Whenever you go to a page on a website to download a file, whether you use your web browser to actually download it or not, these are called direct downloads. They are also called HTTP downloads, but the actual tool that you use to download the file can vary a little bit.

Among this lot you also have to consider the use of file download managers such as jDownloader and FTP downloads. These options, while they don't necessarily take place through your web browser, are considered direct downloads as the files are not shared between users, rather stored on a server and allowed to download from there.

Peer-based downloads

The other file downloading option that exists are p2p or peer to peer downloads. Instead of downloading a file from a remote server, which is just technically another computer out there somewhere connected to the internet, you’re downloading files directly from other people. Well, their computers, anyway.

While people tend to think of peer to peer downloads as soley being torrents, this isn't always the case. Even though the use of peer2peer networks is dwindling, there are still p2p software available for download that you can use to connect to other filesharing users. Popular filesharing software includes Limewire and Shareaza, but there are others available still.

There are plenty of different ways that you can download files and have those files saved to your computer, network storage or external hard drive at home. You can use your phone to download files too, pretty much any file you can download with your computer, you can download using your tablet or other mobile device as well.

Really, how you choose to download files and save them to your computer is up to you. But, these are the two major choices you have when it comes to downloading files that you want to use.

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