avast free dome edition slow to download

[yeto]

Hi,

I'm new to Avast.

I have been trying to download Avast from www.download.com and it is only transferring about 2MB per 24 hour period.

I am using Orbit download manager, Windows XP, and dialup.

I can usually download a 16MB file in 1.5 hours.

Any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks for any help,
Yeto

[Lisandro]

What if you download directly from www.avast.com and not from www.download.com?
Other option is www.filehippo.com

[RejZoR]

Download directly from ALWIL servers. They are wicked fast all the time.

[DavidR]

I'm new to Avast.

I have been trying to download Avast from www.download.com and it is only transferring about 2MB per 24 hour period.

I am using Orbit download manager, Windows XP, and dialup.
I can usually download a 16MB file in 1.5 hours.

Any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong?

Well only yesterday, using only the default firefox download and dial-up I downloaded the 16.6MB program setupeng.exe from avast.com in a little over an hour.

[Jahn]

Hi,

I'm new to Avast.

I have been trying to download Avast from www.download.com and it is only transferring about 2MB per 24 hour period.

I am using Orbit download manager, Windows XP, and dialup.

I can usually download a 16MB file in 1.5 hours.

Any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks for any help,
Yeto

Hi Yeto, welcome to the forums.

I've had slow download issues with Orbit, which is why I don't use it anymore. Try downloading direct from any of the above sites.

PS Free Download Manager works much better for me, but isn't as good as Orbit for Flash downloads.

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

[yeto]

Wow, thanks for all the help.

I will try a different download manager.

Thanks,
Yeto

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

There really isn't any need to use a download manager in fact I think the avast.com download won't allow for multiple connections for download. As I said I just used firefox no download manager and it was done in just over an hour, which would be good even if you were using a download manager.

Welcome to the forums.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Well only yesterday, using only the default firefox download and dial-up I downloaded the 16.6MB program setupeng.exe from avast.com in a little over an hour.

That's disappointing, even for 56k! When I calculated that, only 37.4 kbps.

I usually gotten 40kbps when I used to have 56k.
For me, if it was 37 kbps, it would have meant that my internet connection was having a bad day.
A superb day usually was 43kbps. That would be 16.6 MB in under 55 minutes.

But, the 43kbps being more the normal wasn't until at least late 2006. Before that, usually the max was 41kbps.

My 56k internet connection actually improved shortly before getting ADSL. LOL.

I just gotten ADSL this year, on May 17, 2007.

[DavidR]

The actual connection speed has little to do with actual physical download speed. I doubt anyone connects at 56Kbps to start with as that is the best possible theoretical speed. My normal connection speed because of line degradation (distance to the exchange, 9KM in my case) is usually 49.2Kbps or 50.6Kbps so I'm already starting at a disadvantage.

With line degradation you also get dropped packets, the number of hops in the download route also has an impact. I tend not to work in Kbps but how long it takes to download 1MB and that is usually between 3.5 minutes (39Kbps I rarely get better than this) and 4 minutes (34.1 Kbps slow day) per MB.

So as a rough rule of thumb, I generally plan using 4 minutes per MB that way it is a bonus if it is quicker.

[Jahn]

You're welcome Yeto, let us know how you get along!

[Jahn]

There really isn't any need to use a download manager in fact I think the avast.com download won't allow for multiple connections for download. As I said I just used firefox no download manager and it was done in just over an hour, which would be good even if you were using a download manager.

Just a note DavidR, avast.com allows at least 4 section downloads (probably more, but I have FDM capped at 4). Avast also supports download resuming (using FDM) in case of a broken internet connection, so you don't lose what you've already downloaded.

[RJARRRPCGP]

The actual connection speed has little to do with actual physical download speed. I doubt anyone connects at 56Kbps to start with as that is the best possible theoretical speed. My normal connection speed because of line degradation (distance to the exchange, 9KM in my case) is usually 49.2Kbps or 50.6Kbps so I'm already starting at a disadvantage.

With line degradation you also get dropped packets, the number of hops in the download route also has an impact. I tend not to work in Kbps but how long it takes to download 1MB and that is usually between 3.5 minutes (39Kbps I rarely get better than this) and 4 minutes (34.1 Kbps slow day) per MB.

So as a rough rule of thumb, I generally plan using 4 minutes per MB that way it is a bonus if it is quicker.

I compared the time it takes to download with the size of a file with the following:

(kilobyte per second) x 8 to get the kbps.

then

16,998.4 / 5,400

16.6 MB is 16,998.4 KB

For KB/s.

Actually, this didn't look good. LOL.

The sum I got was only 28.8 k speeds, at 25kbps! Yuck.

[DavidR]

There really isn't any need to use a download manager in fact I think the avast.com download won't allow for multiple connections for download. As I said I just used firefox no download manager and it was done in just over an hour, which would be good even if you were using a download manager.

Just a note DavidR, avast.com allows at least 4 section downloads (probably more, but I have FDM capped at 4). Avast also supports download resuming (using FDM) in case of a broken internet connection, so you don't lose what you've already downloaded.

When I tried it with Star Downloader it sat for ages trying to get file information and only ever had the single connection. In the end I just abandoned the download manager and just used the default firefox one which gives reasonable speed. It is soon to have the ability to resume downloads so that to a certain extent make a download manager redundant for me.

[Jahn]

Ahh, but not all download managers are created equally! Still, I will be watching for the improvements to the FF download manager, as FDM actually works better with IE.

[Lisandro]

It is soon to have the ability to resume downloads so that to a certain extent make a download manager redundant for me.

I won't call it redundant as there are a lot of features that firefox build-in does not have or have in limited amount. Configure the number of parts (connections to site), resume after boot/logon, history of downloaded files kept without being 'cleaned', etc.