Does anyone use BitTorrent with a dial-up Internet connection?

[Matthew]

I've wondered how well BitTorrent works with dial-up Internet connections.

Obviously, it would be extremely slow.  But it has one huge advantage compared to direct downloading: Downloads can be resumed without starting over.  Most web servers don't support download resuming, which makes it infeasible to download large files with a slow Internet connection.  If BitTorrent at least works with a dial-up connection, it would allow a person to download large files.

There still are some people today that use dial-up modems.  Does anyone use it with BitTorrent?  I've noticed that some peers have speeds of around 1 kilobyte per second or less.  I wonder if those people are using dial-up connections.

[Sid]

As you suspect--it works well, but slow.

It's impossible to tell why peers upload at any given speed.

[dueda]

At 52-56 K bit per second, that is 5KB/s or 300KB per minute, 1800KB per hour.

Means 23 DAYS to download a Gigabyte. Even low quality movies are unfeasible.

Yeah, I remember downloading VGA GIFs in bauds... Not much fun.

[RobertX]

I remember trying to when I started out with 56k. Going on America Online in the late 90s is more preferable.

Better to do it with MIRCs and FTPs than this.

[Matthew]

But BitTorrent allows downloads to be resumed without starting over.

Most direct download servers don't.  In the 1990s, web browsers didn't even support it.  I remember there was a plug-in that allowed downloads to be paused and resumed -- but it required the web browser to be kept running, and the Internet connection maintained, while it was paused.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when I was a kid, there were a lot of games that I wanted to play, but wasn't able to, because I was unable to purchase them, and no one would give them to me.  Those games included the Half-Life games, Homeworld, and Ground Control.  I was able to download the demos for those games, but I had to do so on a computer with a broadband connection.  The computer at my home had a dial-up Internet connection.

For years, I was able to play the demos for those games, but wasn't able to play the full version.  With Half-Life (one of the most legendary FPS games ever), I played the demo Half-Life: Uplink (which is a modified version of a section that was cut from the full version of the game) in late 1999, but didn't get to play the full version of the game until mid 2005.

If BitTorrent had existed back then, I could have downloaded the full versions of those games with a dial-up Internet connection.

It would have taken weeks or months to download them, but I could have done it.

Because BitTorrent allows downloads to be resumed without starting over.

[dueda]

I don't remember when download managers came, but they're old , as old as said download / connection drops.
DAP - Download Accelerator Plus / Pro was a popular "new generation" of such tools and it's site says "Since 1999".
FlashGet and GetRight (this one the "de facto" at the time) both came by 1997. Other tools are even older.

[rogary]

At 52-56 K bit per second, that is 5KB/s or 300KB per minute, 1800KB per hour.

Means 23 DAYS to download a Gigabyte. Even low quality movies are unfeasible.

Yeah, I remember downloading VGA GIFs in bauds... Not much fun.

U need a new calculator, dude . . . I mean dueda.  300 KB per minute is 18,000 KB per hour.  It would only take around 2 1/2 days to download a Gig.  Fortunately, files were small back in them days so you wouldn't be downloading no gig.

[RobertX]

Has anyone found this year's Wrestlemania on Beta Max tapes?

Seriously, the dialup connection hangs up in three hours. In the morning, I would just resume the connection. If the source, like an IRC web server or an FTP site a guy opens, goes off and on sometimes.

I've never got around to using torrents on a dialup, but I'm sure that there would be no point. Think of all the traffic that the computer's throughput is not sending.

With an FTP server, and with much luck, a dialup connection can get you past 1GB.

Anyone here use ISDN?

[Matthew]

In the 1990s and early 2000s, this is what we had to deal with.

Even with a download manager, you can't resume a download unless the server supports it.  From what I've seen, most web servers don't.  File sharing sites explicitly say that they don't allow you to resume downloads unless you pay for premium service.

Seriously, the dialup connection hangs up in three hours.

This isn't a problem with BitTorrent, because it allows you to resume downloads.

You don't even have to tell it to -- it automatically downloads the file whenever it is available.

With an FTP server, and with much luck, a dialup connection can get you past 1GB.

With BitTorrent, you don't need luck, because it doesn't force you to start over if the download is interrupted.

You also don't have to have your phone unavailable for days on end.

I've never got around to using torrents on a dialup, but I'm sure that there would be no point.

The point is it allows you to obtain content that is available on BitTorrent.

Was there any way of downloading the full versions of Half-Life or Homeworld for free in 1999?  I would be interested to know.

[RobertX]

First Matt, I know that Bit Torrent wasn't the one that "controls" the dialup connection; the nature of the dialup connection does.

Secondly, I've only used torrents only once when I was still on dialup; I was just not impressed at the time. However, it was since I had a DSL connection that I rediscovered torrents.

I was fine with the alternatives until I saw The Pirate Bay and SuprNova. Just saying.