Let’s say I need to grab a large EPUB/PDF (60MB+) from a site with multiple mirrors. What often happens is I go the mirror, cut/paste the link, and watch as the file slowly trickles in before ultimately failing.

So I go to the next mirror and the process repeats.

Is there a way I can plug all the separate links into a software manager and download the file concurrently in chunks from the different servers, torrent style? Or at least resume the download at a fresh link?

I downloaded Persepolis on Linux Mint, but it doesn’t seem to do anything differently than the browser.

  • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    Yes, most download managers support this. At least resuming, if not combining multiple HTTP sources.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Can you recommend one that does?

      And do links expire pretty quickly? Why do my d/l’s keep failing? I think the problem is server side. The d/l fails and the link is deleted.

      • Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        As far as why the downloads are failing - does the site/mirrors your downloading from have subscriptions for higher speed downloads? My bet would be that if you’re downloading without a subscription then your traffic is getting deprioritized server-side. Kind of a shitty way for them to operate, if so, but nothing you can really do about it. Most sites I’ve downloaded from like that just make you watch an ad or force you to wait some amount of seconds before the download starts.

        Just my hypothesis, though. Can’t know for sure if that’s happening without knowing what site it is.

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          Yeah, they’re the servers with the countdown time to start the download.

          No idea what they want me to download a net of 200MB to get a 30MB file that fails at 10MB a bunch of times. Seems like they’re wasting bandwidth.

          • Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            3·
            2 days ago

            If these are e-books you’re looking for, you may want to try soulseek. It’s promoted a lot on here for music downloads, but I’ve gotten almost all my e-books from there, too.

            • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              Oh, nice. Unfortunately, I use a hotspot and VPN, so I don’t think I can open the ports i need to share my library, so i get blacklisted pretty quickly as a leecher.

              • dry_water@programming.devEnglish
                1·
                1 day ago

                Maybe try xdcc? You might have wait times of you leech a huge amount, but speeds are usually fast and no ads and b.s. , but you might get mislabelled content at times.

              • Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                Ah, yeah, I can see where that would be an issue. I don’t use a VPN for Soulseek since it’s not really needed, but I seem to recall reading that it can be configured to work behind a VPN. However, the VPN provider must have port forwarding. And the configuration process may understandably be more effort than you’d want to put into downloading ebooks.