Perhaps I'm the only one noticing this, but Linux does a great job at managing bandwidth. Surfing the web does not slow down a bit when I'm downloading a large file (priority given to firefox?), and I'm downloading 8.4Kbps average on a 7Kbps line, somehow. I <3 Linux. ;D
It could be that your browser is estimating incorrectly. On a 56kbit line, it is theoretically impossible to download at greater than 7 kilobytes/second unless some kind of compression hanky-panky is involved.
on that note, out of curiosity, what speed do you get downloading this (http://www.javaop.com/~iago/test.exe.gz)? The file is 21mb but is compressed to 20kb. Most real browsers should automatically decompress it. I'm wondering which speed it logs.
134Kbps.
Heh, sweet. Everything should be .gz'ed :)
I think that comes from the fact that the download started (and probably finished) before I picked my save location (I'm running a LiveCD right now so I don't have my nice cozy firefox settings).
Honestly, I've always noticed a semi-dramatic increase in download speed, and just regular browsing speed while using linux. I also notice a 1000% percent increase in the stability of my computer while on linux.