This course introduces you to the world of sharing files on the Internet. Internet is a huge resource of information and data spread all over. Many a times this information may not be available in the form of Web pages you are used to reading, but in the form of files. This course will help you in gaining access to this whole new domain of downloading and file sharing.
What is Downloading?
Downloading is simply receiving a file from another computer and saving it on one’s own computer.
What is Uploading?
Uploading is the process of sending files from one’s own computer to a network or some other computer which is set to receive it.
One of the most common examples of uploading and downloading of files is in the form of email attachments. Email attachments are the separate files which may accompany an email message. To use the file, the users need to ‘download’ the file from the mail. Similarly, to be able to send the file, you need to ‘upload’ the file to the email server, which will then transfer the file to email recipient.
Online File Sharing:
The advent of newer technologies in the online world is fast changing the way we share and receive files. To some extent it has also made file sharing redundant in few cases. For example, online video sites like youtube and metacafe host video files on their server which can be viewed without actually downloading the files (the definition of downloading assumes that the file is being saved on client’s computer). However, the need of sharing files on the Internet is being felt today than never before. Some common modes of file sharing that exists today are:
- Email attachments
- Downloading files already shared on Web servers
- FTP
- Torrents
- Sites which host files online like rapidshare, esnips etc.
We will look at some of these in detail in coming sections.