Downloading Files from the Internet

[Daniel Albano]

On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, Polly Reese wrote:

> As we look to make information available via the Web, we are
> investigating what the Internet user community accepts as a reasonable
> file size for downloading or retrieval.  

	Polly, it depends critically on the speed of link, link load,
	degree of local caching, usefulness of data, reuse of data,
	alternatives available, and frequency of downloading events.

	Clearly these will vary with the exact user group, and whether
	the use is educational, professional or recreational.	

	In my case (28.8Kb modem) I would suggest the following
	as "reasonable" limits:

	Index pages: 10 KB

	Dingbats, separators: 4 KB (no more than 3 unique/page)

	Backgrounds (common to entire site): 6 KB

	Online information documents: 15 KB

	Images (only as terminal data - "leaves"): up to 250 KB, if needed

	Technical documents, complete, compressed: up to 500 KB

	Books, complete, as compressed postscript: up to 3 MB

	"one-time, rare, or long term periodic downloads" - eg.
	semi-annual kernel source upgrades, compressed: 10 MB

	The underlying philosophy is simple.  If it wasn't what I
	was looking for, or if I have to see it more than once, it
	should be small.  The above limits may be out by a binary
	order of magnitude, either way.

	- Daniel