Which is faster, direct download or torrent?

There are many variables, including the server and site you are downloading from or how many seeds you got on your torrent file, but if you want it straight and simple:

I'd go torrent. You can configure the speed you use and usually there's a good torrent site there that has everything you want to download. Just make sure you have enough peers. =D

I recommend uTorrent and Azureus (now Vuze).

www.mininova.org

www.isohunt.com

These are the usual good sites to get your torrents from.

Hope this helps.

Direct-torrent

There is no correct answer, as the download speed in both cases can vary greatly depending on which servers or peers your are downloading from.

In the general case, however, direct downloads are generally considered faster - but nowadays private torrent trackers are offering comparable (or sometimes even better) speeds.

Compared to public torrent speeds, it is safe to assume that direct downloads will be faster atleast 80% of the time.

Always, always, always depends.

For me, sites with low traffic, I can direct download a 500 mb file in about 10 minutes.

But if I were to torrent that same file and it had no seeders, it might take 2 hours.

If there are more seeders than leechers, torrents are usually faster. But if there's a ton of leechers, just direct download.

There are too many variables to give one answer that will be correct in all instances. If the source has a speedy connection and is near you (in terms of network topology), then that might give you the fastest download. On the other hand, if the direct download source is further away or does not have a speedy connection (or is swamped by simultaneous download requests), then a torrent might be faster -- assuming there is a sufficient number of sources available with good connections who are not too far away.

it all depends in the seeder, or server you are downloading from, in some cases direct is faster, in others torrents are faster, there for i rate them at the same speed of downloading. (there are *more* direct site however that will give you a faster connection than the bit torrents)

mostly direct downloads are fasters cause torrents may be faster but they depend on the number of seeds that are attached and if there is a small number of seed while a larger number of leechers than a torrent becomes very slow.

seeds=providers

leechers=attached in the queue to download simultaneously that same thing you are trying to download

It simply depends on the seeders. For torrents, there are multiple hosts, therefore having many seeders.

For direct downloads, there is one host, therefore the upload speed is usually always the same.

torrent usually because you're downloading from multiple people at once

im pretty sure torrent is faster