On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 12:49 -0800, R A Jon Hamelin wrote: <snip> > 4) My original post was to inquire if the Developer spin was available > via a straight download, not to discuss the pros and cons of torrents. I > downloaded the F8 DVD as a regular download in 42 minutes. Why would I > want some insecure software exposing me to who knows what risks for 12 > or so hours? No Thank you. There is nothing inherently insecure in bittorrent. You'd be exposed in EXACTLY the same manner if you were to perform an HTTP or FTP download of a malicious file. Anyone who uses a downloaded file of ANY type without at least attempting to verify its validity is (pardon me for being blunt) foolish. Now, is bittorrent faster? That depends. If there's only a few sites that have the stuff you want and they're really busy...yes, it's faster. It was designed to "spread the load around". Now if you find a site that has what you want, isn't busy, and doesn't throttle long FTP sessions back then no, bittorrent won't be any faster. The point is, there's no single "best way" to do ANYTHING. It depends on what you're trying to do and what resources are available. There is also absolutely no guarantee that what you download (via any method... even a disk you physically pick up somewhere) is what it purports to be. There's an article in PC Week right now that says that a bunch of hard drives shipped from Taiwan _came_ with viruses pre-installed! Wonderful! Ok, I've had my say. Let the flaming begin! (ducking his head) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxx - - CDN Systems, Internap, Inc. http://www.internap.com - - - - Tempt not the dragons of fate, since thou art crunchy and taste - - good with ketchup. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
