A viable alternative?

HTTP downloading.. It's not sharing, and so much faster than P2P!

I generally find torrents to be very much faster than direct downloads. Rapidshare is probably the slowest, often dropping to a few Kb a second. A popular torrent can max out a 1Gbit Internet connection.

I generally find torrents to be very much faster than direct downloads. Rapidshare is probably the slowest, often dropping to a few Kb a second. A popular torrent can max out a 1Gbit Internet connection.

However, back in the days of proper file sharing networks such as ed2k then yes; it could be quite slow. Bittorent was quite a revolution.

The relatively slow older networks are still useful for difficult to find material though, such as vintage out of print vinyl rips which are simply not available for love nor money from anywhere else.

Call me old fashioned, but I like to share

Everyone's just so out for themselves these days!

Which is why I pay for stuff rather than DLing it.

Some stuff is simply not available to buy legally, or is available to download free and legally.

Yet, while people setting up Wi-Fi hotspots for altruistic reasons face potential prosecution, businesses that provide Wi-Fi as a service appear to be offered immunity by Ofcom.

"Where a Wi-Fi network is provided in conjunction with other goods or services to a customer, such as a coffee shop or a hotel, our presumption is that the provider is within the definition of internet service provider," Ofcom's draft proposal states.

And because ISPs with fewer than 400,000 customers are currently exempt from the copyright enforcement scheme, Ofcom says it "would initially exclude those operators".

Read more: Ofcom warns off free Wi-Fi providers | Security | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/35 ... z0pdiAh1Ca