A while ago I put together my document FTP vs HTTP that compares data transfers done using those two protocols. Similarities and differences.
Today I’m taking the next step in this little series and I offer you Bittorrent vs HTTP! This document discusses differences in areas such as:
- Transfer Speed
- Streaming
- Uplink
- Firewalls
- Redundancy
- Server Load
- Encryption
- Protocol Standards
As usual, I’m all ears for your valuable input and help on making it more accurate and more detailed than I manage to myself. Point out my mistakes, my weird use of words or whatever. Post a comment here or email me.
You might mention that bittorrent is often blocked by firewalls.
Thanks, I added a little something about it!
Personally I would say something like “…easily blocked by firewall admins, and often corporate/public wifi firewalls do because of the common illegal usage of bittorrent.” Or something like that, but of course it’s your thing and I’m probably just ranting too much.
Yeah, I was trying to avoid getting into politics in there so I think “easily blocked” is enough as then everyone can figure out themselves what that means in corporate or similar environments…
I want to disagree with you on the streaming bit… Doesn’t the client request the chunks it wants to get? I don’t see why you couldnt create a client which downloads the chunks in order so it could be used to stream audio/video across…
Hm, yes… I need to rephrase that section a bit and clarify my reasoning.
As you say, a client could probably attempt to ask for the chunks in a sequential order. I think the main problem with that is that clients typically do the chunks in a random order to share the load optimally and best deal with the situation where no peer has the missing piece. I mean, a bittorrent download can easily reach a missing chunk that may be missing for a good while simply because none of the peers have it yet.