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Should Downloading Be Broken Up? Essay

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Traditional downloading is a very simple process: one goes online, finds the file that they desire, and directly downloads the entirety of the file directly to their computer. This process is not only time consuming, it also cannot be broken up, as doing so will cancel the entire process. This way of downloading however can be done alone and without the assistance of anyone beyond the person that uploaded the initial file. Peer to peer file-sharing is a networked way to download a much larger file by downloading it one piece at a time. Users both download and upload pieces of a much larger file at the same time, sharing their pieces with other people who are downloading the file while acquiring new pieces. This process is guided by a very small file called a torrent that permits this transfer to take place by acting similar to a radio frequency. Downloading and running this torrent file will allow you to participate in the information exchange this allows the file transfer to be much faster, seeing as multiple incoming sources exist simultaneously as outgoing sources, but it also allows a user to stop and resume a download at will. The majority of uses for this technology are for illegal downloading, though other companies and products have made use of the speed and clarity offered by peer to peer file sharing. In a moment of irony, Steam, the largest online retailer of PC games, uses the same process as the pirates in order to permit legal users to download the games the

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