Rick Stevens wrote:
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. -
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Sorry to disappoint, however, being the old hippie that I am, I'm not
into flaming. I suppose that like most things in life there is more than
one way to accomplish a task. It all comes down to what you are
comfortable with. Myself, I was bit once so I won't go there again. The
company I downloaded from hasn't gone near torrents since either.
Sincerely,
Jon
--
R A Jon Hamelin
Hamelin Graphics
324-1985 Wallace St
Vancouver, BC V6R 4H4
778 327 9302
