Is HTTP partial GET a reliable mechanism? If it is, how come it seems like modern browsers still start from the beginning instead of resuming the download?
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A:
Whenever I download big files with wget, I might interrupt them and resume with -c. I don't remember ever getting a corrupted file. Safari allows you to resume (instead of restart) a stopped download, works fine there too.
Dietrich Epp
2009-05-29 06:20:36
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A:
In my experience this feature is not ubiquitous across all web servers. Probably because it is not a widely used by web clients. Sort of like HTTP HEAD requests which may or may not be implemented. As always, YMMV depending on the clients and servers involved.
The download resumption mechanism is based on HTTP range request headers that specify what part of the content you want (see here). I have not messed with this much in the last few years, so you may be better served doing a little more Google research. Here is a link to a blog posting that talks about some the latest developments regarding this feature.
David Taylor
2009-05-29 06:35:11
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A:
Yes, when done properly (If-Match etag...), it is reliable.
Julian Reschke
2009-05-29 06:55:45