Which is faster direct downloading or torrents?

Answer 1

There is no definitive answer, as results can vary depending on network load conditions and availability. The primary advantage that torrents have over traditional HTTP / FTP downloads is that they are decentralized and can run in parallel. If a server is being swamped with requests, downloading from it will be very slow. And if the seeder of a torrent has a slow upload speed, downloading will also be slow. If download speed was unlimited, but each uploader of a seed was limited to a certain speed, as were HTTP / FTP servers, the torrent would be faster, since you can download from more than one person, at a rate faster than single person can upload.

Real-world though, there are many situations where one method would be better than another. For small downloads, direct HTTP / FTP would be faster. What sense would it make to download a 10 KB torrent file, open up your client, connect to the tracker, retrieve a list of peers, and then start downloading, for a 40 KB file? Not much. Nor would it make sense to download a large file through a web browser, unless you have a download manager controlling downloads. Otherwise, if your browser crashed, all your download time would be wasted.