Uploading and downloading

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In networks, to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer. Examples of a remote system from which a download might be performed include a webserver, FTP server, email server, or other similar systems. A download can mean either any file that is offered for downloading or that has been downloaded, the process of receiving such a file.this download can also be done through ftp servers as many of the files that are on website to be downloaded are present on ftp severs. Many of the freewares are also present on internet for download but their source code cannot be modifies and are of less use. Many sites offer free download or freetrial download facilities such as ["http://www.download.com]

The inverse operation, uploading, is the sending of data from a local system to a remote system, such as a server, with the intent that the remote system should save a copy of whatever is being transfered, or the initiation of such a process. The words first came into common usage among computer users with the advent of dial-up Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) in the 1970s.

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[edit] Download

The use of the terms uploading and downloading often imply that the data sent or received is to be stored permanently, or at least stored more than temporarily. In contrast, the term downloading is distinguished from the related concept of streaming, which indicates the receiving of data that is used near immediately as it is received, while the transmission is still in progress and which may not be stored long-term, whereas in a process described using the term downloading, this would imply that the data is only usable when it has been received in its entirety.

Increasingly, websites that offer streaming media or media displayed in-browser, such as YouTube, and which place restrictions on the ability of users to save these materials to their computers after they have been received, say that downloading is not permitted.[1] In this context, "download" implies specifically "receive and save" instead of simply "receive".

[edit] Sideload

When applied to local transfers (sending data from one local system to another local system), it is often difficult to decide if it is an upload or download, as both source and destination are in the local control of the user. Technically if the user uses the receiving device to initiate the transfer then it would be a download and if they used the sending device to initiate it would be an upload. However, as most non-technical users tend to use the term download to refer to any data transfer, the term "sideload" is increasingly being used to cover all local to local transfers to end this confusion.

[edit] Remote upload

When there is a transfer of data from a remote system to another remote system, the process is called "remote uploading". This is used by some online file hosting services.

Remote uploading is also used in situations where the computers that need to share data are located on a distant high speed local area network, and the remote control is being performed using a comparatively slow dialup modem connection.

For example:

  • The user remotely accesses a file hosting service at MyRemoteHost.
  • The user finds a public file at PublicRemoteHost and wants to keep a copy in their MyRemoteHost.
  • To have it done they "remote upload" the file from PublicRemoteHost to MyRemoteHost.
  • None of the hosts are located on the user's the local network.

Without remote uploading functionality, the user would be required to download the file first to their local host and then re-upload it to the remote file hosting server.

Where the connection to the remote computers is via a dialup connection, the transfer time required to download locally and then re-upload could increase from seconds, to hours or days.

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[edit] References

  1. ^ "YouTube - Terms of Use". YouTube, LLC. 2007. http://www.youtube.com/t/terms. Retrieved 2007-10-25.