Forum Moderators: phranque
I have noticed that ftp download speeds seem to go much fater than http and even faster then the modem is supposed to handle. For instance my old 56K dialup did 5 times faster than this when downloading via ftp. Now that I have a 256 ADSL, I downloaded via ftp a 10 meg file at 230 kb which is almost 10 times faster than the modem is supposed to handle.
Is there any non-techie explainable reason on why this protocol is so much faster than the other?
As its name-- File Transfer Protocol-- implies, FTP was specifically developed to transfer files across networks. The much younger HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) trades off some features of FTP to improve transfer for smaller files like web pages, but it is not easy to explain those tradeoffs without going into technical details.
[edited by: Woz at 11:05 pm (utc) on July 21, 2005]
[edit reason] Removed dead link. [/edit]
Despite the (slightly) higher speeds of FTP in comparison to HTTP, dowloading with 230 Kb on a 256 Kbits ADSL connection is impossible. I'd say either your ISP has provided you with a way to fast connection or there is something wrong with the speed reporting.
Why is that impossible? I get almost 3Mbps from the newsgroups on nonpeak times (2.96Mbps is the high end; I average 2.75~2.88). As long as there is little saturation along the line (off peak times and few users) it is possible. One of the joys of living in the country with few houses nearby.
