Ask Leo!: Internet

How do download accelerators work?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:46:28 -08:00

I recently downloaded two sizable content files, each 1.1GB. My FIOS is 20/5. The first file took X minutes to download. The second download link (from the same company) to me to a "content downloader" and the file of the same size took less than half the time. I mean, it was quite noticeably faster. I wonder how their "downloader" program can cut the download time of a huge file in half because my internet connection is still 20/5.

]]> Download accelerators certainly don't make your internet connection any faster, but they do sometimes seem like they do.

A normal file download is essentially a file copy operation. A file on some remote server is copied to your computer.

A download accelerator does that too, but it can make use of a few tricks to simply be more efficient at it; sometimes, much more efficient.

What would you recommend for a small business to provide ftp to clients?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:43:16 -08:00

What would you recommend a small business use to provide FTP to clients? Each client should be able to have their own separate area that is protected from being viewed by other clients

]]> FTP or File Transfer Protocol is a common technology used to upload and download files and it can be useful to some businesses to exchange files with clients.

In this video from an Ask Leo! webinar, I'll give my recommendation, and my reasoning behind it.

Can everything I do online be monitored at my router?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:41:23 -08:00

A few days ago around the dinner table, my family was talking about how police can monitor everything that you do on the web and can track you. Because he is registered as the owner of the router, my father says that he can view everything that I do as it passes through the router. Is this true? And if so, how can I bypass this?

]]> Yes, it's true.

But before you focus on that too much, there are two things to keep in mind:

First, it's not really that easy for the average consumer.

Second, there are easier alternatives to monitoring your router.

Let me explain what I mean and what you can do to protect yourself - if, indeed, you can protect yourself at all.

From where can I legally download mp3 files?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:25:47 -08:00

This is a question that has been bugging me for a long time: do you know a decent site from where I can download legal MP3 files? I ask this for a relative, because I myself am old-fashioned: I either buy the CD or get the CD from a national library here in the Netherlands with 300,000 titles. I then rip the CD to Ogg Vorbis format and listen to it on my computer (Ubuntu Linux with Banshee music player) or on my BlackBerry (which, surprisingly, plays Ogg Vorbis). But this relative of mine asked me how he could download music to create and burn his own CDs. If someone wants to download music legally, I would suggest they look at iTunes, but with DRM and all that, I don't know if you can burn CDs from that.

]]> My experience is that iTunes will let you burn some songs to CD, but not others. As I understand it, it's up to the music publisher of each song as to whether that's allowed. (And yes, it's frustrating when it's not.)

Unfortunately, I don't have a specific recommendation for you in the Netherlands. I'll touch on a few possibilities for getting music legally, but it's a surprisingly difficult question to answer in a useful way that makes it clear what is and is not legal.

I also want to address something in your question that has me a little concerned:

You might already be violating copyright law.

Why doesn't my click in a search result go directly to the destination?

leo@pugetsoundsoftware (Leo A. Notenboom) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:27:59 -08:00

I notice that when I click a search result in Google UK, I don't get taken straight to the target page, such as targetpage.com. Instead, I get taken to http://www.google.co.uk/url?url=http://www.targetpage.com and thence, auto-redirected to the target page. The most irritating thing about this is that the browser Back button doesn't work as expected. You have to click it twice to jump to the intermediate page and get back to the search results. I noticed this in IE9. I did a quick check in Firefox or with google.com (as opposed to google.co.uk) - and perhaps I should say that I don't _see_ it in those cases. What's happening and can I stop it?

]]> I'm pretty sure that you're simply not noticing it on the other domain or in the other browser, or that the technique being used there is different.

There are actually several different approaches to what's happening here, but ultimately, there's a legitimate reason why Google does this and I'm not aware of a way to disable it.

I'll review some of the techniques and the reasons why they exist.