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Comment by josephg

18 hours ago

I used to use GetRight to download big files over FTP or HTTP, over dialup. You could set it up to automatically re-dial your ISP if you got disconnected halfway through a download. And you could download a file in multiple "threads" - for example, get 2 concurrent HTTP sessions downloading the same file, one thread starting from the start and a second thread starting halfway through the file.

GetRight did all this in 1997.

GetRight is how I downloaded Linux ISOs on dial-up. IIRC it had a schedular so the computer could automatically dial after everyone was in bed and gracefully disconnect before "daytime" tariffs kicked in. It could resume the next evening again!

This. GetRight also integrated with browsers, so clicking a link went straight to GetRight.

Or FileZilla. Or Flashget.

We had this in the 2000's.

And we lost it!

  • I would even say that we also lost that 90s Internet Explorer download dialog. Feels quite nostalgic whenever I see happen to see it...