Download Services

Online Download Services

Before download services were available to people, you had to buy CDs when you wanted to get a program on your computer, anything like an antivirus or an editing software. If you wanted the latest music, you had to go to a shop and buy it physically, the same with movies, you could either buy them or you could rent them for a limited amount of time and have to give them back in. Soon after that, all this became possible to download and it all became possible because of the new broadband technology, which allowed faster Internet download speeds and became more feasible.

At first you were able to download simple things like online forms that you could download, print out and fill them out and send them off, but then as broadband became more sophisticated toy were able to download bigger files.

The ability to download content online has opened a completely new entertainment market where people can watch videos, download music very quickly and stream videos to your computer. Streaming videos is different to downloading videos, when you stream a video to your computer, you get to see the you are able to see the footage live being streamed on the website, where as in downloading you actually get to keep the file forever. In gaming, when you download a game, you don’t actually play the game online, but play it offline after if has been downloaded, with the possibility that it has a multiplayer feature built in with the game where you are able to play with other people online.

There are many examples of things that you are able to get online like music and video probably being the most obvious ones, but also things like updates for satnavs, this has proven to be very useful as roads get constantly updated and new routes are created and when going abroad, you want
to know the most updated roads so that you don’t get lost when you get to the location.

Almost all software is updatable online like flash or Java which are almost always necessary to have the latest version for your computer to be working up to speed but to also fix any security problems within the program. Some updates you don’t have and option whether you can update or not, for example windows automatically detects when you are turning off your computer and updates your operating system during that time, so that when you next turn on your computer it restarts it.

Automatic updates can cause you to download more data that you don’t want but also take up mor space on your hard drive. 

One example of this happening is the recent event of a U2 album that everyone got on ITunes automatically for free, which in fact left a lot of people very angry as they did not want their album and did not like their music. The band then apologised for what they have done and said that they just wanted to share their music to more people, but even more this has caused news agencies and other music artists to criticise U2 for devaluing music by giving away free music to people.

Another thing that many people are able to download today are phone apps that you are able to download at anytime when you have a connection to the Internet. However the only problem is that some of the apps can be very big In file sizes and can take up a lot of space on your phone, or if you are connected to a 3G or 4G network and have limited credit, it can take a lot of your credits away so it is recommended that you download these apps when you are connected to a WIFI connection. With downloading phone apps, developers are able to issue updates for their apps that you are able to download online as well.

Another form of entertainment that you are able to get downloaded off the internet are e-books which you are able to download on to tablets and other electronic devices.

Some of the limitations for download services are that you actually need a good online connection in the first place to be able to do all of the things above. Another limitation are the automatic updates that can cause some problems like unwanted updates and updates that take up space on your computer which can be annoying. A third problem can be hacking and security issues, as on some websites when you download something like a program or videos, they could actually be computer viruses that can damage your computers or steal your private information.

However the good points of download services are they they are amazingly useful, especially with the increase of laptops, tablets and phones not having access to a CD drive, means that they have to rely on the download services that are available.

In my personal experiences I tend to use download services a lot as I download a lot of apps on my phone like games. I also tend to download a lot of music on my computer at home, which I then transfer onto my phone. Another thing that I tend to download on my PC at home are programs and games. For games, I use a service called Steam that offers a wide range of games that I am able to buy, download on to my computer and able to play them within hours depending on the file size and my internet speed.