You never used a download manager like DownThemAll or GetBot back in the day?
As far as fragmentation goes, I think both Firefox and Chrome derivatives figure out the final file size in advance, pre-allocate a temporary file that long and put data in it as it arrives. Completing the download is a rename operation or a no-op.
Speed Download on early OS X releases was a lifesaver back when I was still on 56k dialup. Its multiplexing was the only way I could get decent speeds half the time (browsers would often drift down to single digits) and being able to resume when connections were dropped (at least when servers supported it).
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You never used a download manager like DownThemAll or GetBot back in the day?
As far as fragmentation goes, I think both Firefox and Chrome derivatives figure out the final file size in advance, pre-allocate a temporary file that long and put data in it as it arrives. Completing the download is a rename operation or a no-op.
GetRight was a fucking lifesaver when I was stuck on a 28.8k dial up connection that loved to drop at the worst possible time.
I haven't thought of that name in decades, but you're right, it really was. :-)
GetRight, then DownThemAll, and now, Multithreaded Download Manager:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multithreaded...
Speed Download on early OS X releases was a lifesaver back when I was still on 56k dialup. Its multiplexing was the only way I could get decent speeds half the time (browsers would often drift down to single digits) and being able to resume when connections were dropped (at least when servers supported it).