On 31 Aug 2005, at 13:19, Matthew Toseland wrote:
Right, you undermine the whole web metaphor by requiring users to
use a
third party GUI tool. And the web metaphor is one of the key things
that
makes freenet interesting. It's only possible because we have global
reachability. And it shows that our goals are freedom of speech and
not
"file sharing".
Yes, except that files downloaded through the web browser will be
able to offer no useful information about how much has been
downloaded in the manner the user normally expects as the pieces of
the file must be downloaded in random order. This may seem like a
minor detail, but in actual fact represents a fairly fundamental
usability problem. The advantage of sticking to a pre-existing
metaphor is that the system works in the way users expect. Requiring
that the user visits a separate page to check on the file download
progress totally destroys any usability benefit of the web metaphor
because it isn't what users expect.
The correct solution is using a "Freenet aware" third-party client
that doesn't require us to hammer the square peg of a Freenet
download, into the round hole of a web browser. The "web metaphor"
is all very well when it is appropriate, but in the case of the
download of large files from Freenet, it simply isn't. Better to do
it properly than to impose an inappropriate metaphor where it doesn't
belong.
Ian.
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