Download speeds

[matt_london1]

I am currently downloading a large (60meg) file from a file storage site. I started the download from my Safari browser and it was only running at 40kbs so I opened up firefox and tried with that (while the original download is still running) and it is downloading at 74Kbs. Why would there be a difference of twice as fast?

[fo3nix]

Do you have any speed optimisers with firefox, such as Fasterfox?

Also, is it a HTTP download?

[matt_london1]

I havent heard of fasterfox so don't expect that i've got it. Not sure what a HTTP download is? I was downloading an album from yousendit.com

[fo3nix]

I guess it is HTTP then. By that I mean downloading a file like you normally do with a web browser, as opposed to using FTP.

Maybe it was just different due to yousendit's servers -- their upload rates won't be equal all the time, even changing every few seconds. Not sure it'd change quite that much though, but otherwise I'm unsure.

[boobesque]

they may use different http pipelining. I know with firefox you can get up to 8 ports or something at once but im not sure what the default is. I also have no idea how many you get with safari but a difference here would definitely make a difference if it is a http download