Large File Advice

I have to deliver 2-ish GB media files to customers (zipped up) after purchase. Any advice on how 开发者_如何转开发to deliver such big files to the general population (translated: novice internet users who will not be savvy enough to use FTP or something).

We can build a download manager for Windows users, but I doubt we'll be able to get one for Mac/Linux. Is there a standard solution I don't know about?

Thanks!

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For most users on a high speed internet connection, novice or not, a direct HTTP download link is likely sufficient. Just be sure that your HTTP responses for both HEAD and GET return the Content-Length header so that users get an accurate progress bar for their download.

In my opinion, the only other reasonable option for novices is probably a download manager. You could of course build your own (possibly using a product like Real Basic to quickly code for all 3 platforms)

There are a number of companies out there that have off the shelf "download assistants" as well. May want to take a look at what companies like Adobe are using for their software downloads.

EDIT: Turns out Adobe uses a custom AIR application for their "download assistant" which is a cross platform option as well.

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I'd say have them as a .torrent file. That way people can continue where they left off, and don't have to start over. You can divide the file into a bunch of rar's or .r01-.r20 and it'll help with distribution. THe bottom line is you don't want people to keep having to start over, this can be frustrating. With a .torrent is viable, especially if you don't want to use FTP.

Windows doesn't have a built in .torrent handler, but I'm sure Linux does. OS X I'm not sure about either.