Most files were available via FTP which supported resume.

Not most. There was (and still is) so much locked behind HTTP on poor servers

	▲	dspillett 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The vast majority of web servers out there¹ support partial download and have done for years. That the most common UA for accessing them (web browsers) don't support the feature² without addons, is not a server-side problem. Sometimes there are server-side problems: some dynamic responses (i.e. files that are behind a user account so need the right to access checked before sending) are badly designed so that they uneccesarily break sub-range downloads. This could be seen as a “poor server” issue, but I think it is more a “daft dev/admin” or “bad choice of software” problem. -------- [1] admittedly not all, but… [2] wget and curl do, though not automatically without a wrapper script
	▲	MisterTea 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Many sites also had an ftp server behind it. E.g. ftp.id.com and ftp.cdrom.com were two off the top of my head. Another I remember was downloading high resolution images of Tyan motherboards from ftp.tyan.com. Supermicro also had an ftp server you grabbed bios images from. I dont really recall ever having to download anything big via http. Mostly images, pdf's and small zip files.

nkrisc 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Obviously I wasn’t using FTP way back then, or I wouldn’t have made the comment I did.

FTP can't restart a PPP or SLIP connection.

	▲	dspillett 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		No, but FTP and such protocols shouldn't need to be aware of that layer, any more than it should be aware of my VPN that is happens to be connecting through. You can resume an FTP transfer once the PPP or SLIP connection has been restored though.