download (tech) question

[trof]

You go to a website and click on something that looks interesting and find yourself downloading a big graphics file or whatever and part way through the download you decided "to hell with it" and cancel.

What happens to the part you downloaded? Did you really download anything unless you completely downloaded it? Or does the partial/canceled download still lurk somewhere in the nether regions of your hard drive?

Thank you.

[rock]

1. Well, data has actually been transferred to your computer

but (and as I like to say, "I have a big 'but'"), it's unusable. It's downloaded (typically) to temporary files, and canceling the download may (depending on circumstances) cause some clean-up action which woul remove the partial file. Also there are some downloaders that can resume a broken download. Is this any help, or are you just curious?

[mrfrapp]

4. Unusable data

Whether of not the data is unusable depends on the nature of that data. For example, if the data is an AVI file and assuming the download was sequential, then the partially downloaded AVI file is partially playable.

[Gman]

2. I believe that with smaller files...

say < 1 or 2 mb, the download is kept in RAM memory until it's completely downloaded. Then it's written to the hard drive. If the DL is stopped, the partial download is still in memory, but nothing gets written to the hard drive. I don't know at what point it gets purged from memory.

I say this because of stuff I've downloaded to the desktop, then canceled. When stopped, nothing appears on the desktop.

[Atlant]

3. I believe the answer is: "It's browser-dependent behavior" (NT)

[trof]

5. many thanks