Ask HN: Why Download a Downloader to Download an app?

I practically never download anything large through a browser: I get the link and then use `wget -c` to make sure I get the file, automatically retries when connection is lost and re-established, etc, instead of waiting a long time and then checking the download in the browser and find out it failed a few minutes after it started for whatever reason.

If it's a couple of megabytes, I use the browser. I don't trust the browser with larger downloads.

The "app downloader" may be doing similar things.

Download & Install is filled with points of failure and have few ways of performing the modifications atomically. Its better to have this correct than have nice information displays. But this depends heavily on what the app structure looks like.

> Especially when the custom downloader doesn't suppoert resuming interrupted downloads, display remaining time, current download speed or how much data is being downloaded

These things are not always easy, are usually lies, and add very little value to the application. Be happy they haven't hyper optimized first time installation or new user onboarding, since you usually only do it once.

Firewall rules could block .zip and .exe downloads that were not approved

Comm lines and ftp/http servers were slower

1GB used to seem like a lot and could take hours

All of this is done behind the scenes though, so your average end user doesn't even notice.