Metalinks Tries to Simplify Downloads

ant_tmwx writes "Metalinks collect information about files in an XML format used by programs that download. The information includes mirror lists, ways to retrieve the file on P2P networks, checksums for verifying and correcting downloads, operating system, language, and other details. Using Metalinks details the Free Software programs you can use to download them with. There are also clients on Mac and Windows. With a list of multiple ways to download a file, programs can switch to another method if one goes down. Or a file can be downloaded from multiple mirrors at once, usually making the download go much faster. Downloads can be repaired during transfer to guarantee no errors. All this makes things automatic which are usually not possible or at least difficult, and increases efficiency, availability, and reliability over regular download links. OpenOffice.org, openSUSE, and other Linux/BSD distributions use them for large downloads."

Comments

Re:Needless extra step?

[TheRaven64]

BitTorrent has two major disadvantages:

1. It is fundamentally inefficient. The overall overhead of using BitTorrent on the Internet is greater than direct downloads.[1]
2. It uses the most expensive bandwidth for distribution. Consumer upload bandwidth is the most scarce and about the most expensive bandwidth you can buy

The only advantage of BitTorrent is that you (the content provider) aren't paying for as much of the bandwidth. On the other hand, bandwidth bought in bulk is so cheap that it's really not worth if for most people.

This system, however, would allow me to easily download automatically from the mirror closest to me. It would also be pretty easy using a little ECMAScript to grab the correct mirror using the browser's locale and present a direct download link.

[1] Actually, it's a pretty horrible protocol. It doesn't do anything with location information, so it adds a lot of extra load to the backbones. It uses TCP, so it will never support multicast without a fundamental redesign, and the algorithms for rate distribution have some fundamental flaws.

Re:Location embedding?

[TheRaven64]

What did I got wrong? You are not thinking in terms of cost. When you buy capacity in bulk, you might get a flat rate, but you are more likely to get one rate for national and one rate for international traffic. In the UK, I believe it's fairly common to get a more expensive rate for transatlantic traffic. If I'm hosting a mirror in the UK, then it will cost me more if Americans use it than people in France. Any finer-grained information doesn't really matter.

Of course, with IPv6 we ought to be able to get rid of this kind of thing, since IPv6 addresses are supposed to encode topology, so you just find the address with the longest prefix match to you and use that.

Your comment doesn't sound right to me...

[__aailob1448]

If it's a pretty horrible protocol, why has it become so popular? Is it possible that all or some of those design "flaws" you mentionned are necessary for it to do what it does? And if not, why have you not created your own, awesomer fileswarming protocol? In fact, why has nobody else?

And I'm really asking here. Not just disguising my attacks as questions.