Fastest download ?

From: theo@ccnet3.ccnet.com
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 14:00:21 -0800

For many people there are 3 different methods that can be used
to download a file such as a soup packet:

o File transfer protocol such as z-modem, y-modem, or x-modem
o FTP (file transfer protocal)
o HTTP (using the web)

I have wondered for some time if one is much faster than the others.
I recently downloaded a 3 Meg file from internet explorer, using http.
I was surprised to notice it dowloaded, apparently, about 3 times
faster than my z-modem would have (about 4Kbytes/sec compared to about
1.5Kbytes/sec).

I plan to explicitly test all three to find out if I am right.

You might ask, what was I doing running internet explorer with a shell
account? I recently figured out how to run a PPP similated account
from a shell account for absolutely free. I use slirp which is usually
even faster than real PPP. If I get inquiries I can tell you all the
details.