Disgusted with the "other" site

[Hornit 3]

Until I start seeing a decent download rate I won't give'em a red cent. I'd happily pay a yearly fee here due to the usefulness and content of this website. Its a quality issue, I'll pay if its worth it. I was just making a plea for developers/modders/painters to post their stuff here....a better, more efficient site.Hornit

[Guest Paul_W]

>Well said Mike. >>A lot of people IMO confuse paying for bandwidth and a >service with paying for freeware. >The alternative? >>The only option I can see, for folk who will not or don't >want to pay, is for each freeware author to upload to their >own site and then the 'I will not pay' folk can trawl the >Net looking for all the individual sites for their >downloads. Reading what Mike and Vulcan wrote reminds me that common sense is still alive and well in some quarters. In particular, the quotes above seem to summarize the issue as well as any. It's too bad that people continue to start negative threads directed at other sites or individuals when they are undeserved. Flightsim simply does business a different way.

[Guest drobson]

I actually get faster d/l speeds at fs.com than I do here. (And the speed here is very good).But, to each his own, I guess.Darrell

http://home.attbi.com/~dkrobson1/warplane_squadron_md_wht.gif

[link:flightsimmers.net/airport/dkrobson1/downloads.htm]Netscape users click here!]Downloads, (the best DC-10 and 737-200 sounds available), links, fs forum, polls. [/center

[Guest KenG]

But the question remains, "Have you donated money to Tom to support AVSIM?" Click the link on the front page an poney up some of those dollars/pesos/rubles/francs/pounds you say you're willing to part with. Both FS.com and AVSIM are excellent sites and both cost their owners a lot of money to keep up.I personally have given what I think is a fair amount to both sites and am quite happy for having done it. I get far more from both sites than what I gave.

[Guest mikehaska]

Hornit, I'm afraid you're missing the point.Until I start seeing a decent download rate I won't give'em a red centWell, until you give them more than a red cent, you won't start seeing decent download rates. :-)The team at Avsim is doing a great job, just like the ones at Flightsim.com. But if Avsim experienced the traffic that Flightsim.com did, it would be the same scenario- costs would mount so high for them, they have to start charging.I heard a wonderful quote yesterday. "When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers." If every developer started uploading here, and not Flightsim.com, this site would get bogged down pretty quickly too. And I bet you you would see a two-tier system.

[Guest Matt Johnson]

Edits for adding detail.Mike,"The team at Avsim is doing a great job, just like the ones at Flightsim.com. But if Avsim experienced the traffic that Flightsim.com did, it would be the same scenario- costs would mount so high for them, they have to start charging."I don't know where that assumption comes from -- and personally I suspect it may be faulty with regards to AVSIM. Considering that in total, AVSIM is currently in the 4Terabytes/month region of bandwidth usage (measured via SNMP monitoring across our three servers), this is probably higher than most of you would expect.Comparing the publicly available figures from each site (from the AVSIM Library statistics system, and FS.Com's "Yesterday's Hot Files" page), we get the following:* FS.Com: 25677 downloads, 57.176GB.* AVSIM: 29052 downloads, 56.339GB.This is comparing like-with-like, by the way (completed downloads, encompassing only file transfer bandwidth).There have been days in the recent past where AVSIM has transferred more than FlightSim.Com, based on this comparison.I expect a few of the cynics out there are saying "How do we know you're not lying about your figures?" Well, you could equally say that about FS.Com's figures. You use our sites, you trust our news, and from that, I figure you can trust our statistics. Neither of us have any reason to lie about how popular we are, or how much traffic we shift every day.The facts above -- which you can verify each day (AVSIM's stats are generated and updated between 4am and 5am Eastern each day, I have no idea about FS.Com) -- are the reason why I am surprised that people are saying that AVSIM can't cope with the levels of traffic that FS.Com gets. The fact is, we already do!AVSIM, even if library usage increases dramatically, have no plans to introduce any sort of charging or two-tier access to our Library system. You (our readers, downloaders and users) can rest assured that we have the means to support not only the load we receive at the moment, but also much, much more. Our financial infrastructure and networking arrangements are sound and would not be affected, as many people have assumed, by a large addition of users.Best regards,--M

[B777ER 2,484]

Matt Johnson,You wrote the following : AVSIM, even if library usage increases dramatically, have no plans to introduce any sort of charging or two-tier access to our Library system. You (our readers, downloaders and users) can rest assured that we have the means to support not only the load we receive at the moment, but also much, much more. Our financial infrastructure and networking arrangements are sound and would not be affected, as many people have assumed, by a large addition of users.That was the point I was trying to make in an earlier post in which I was berated for by a few (drobson namely and yourself). The question I was trying to get across is both sites in my opinion are about the same in popularity. So why is it Avsim is able to do it without a two-tier system and FS.com can't?

[Guest]

This is all good news but all that really matters is that This is the place where the other members make you feel like their family and people are friendly polite and very rarly rude and that is worth any downloads, i feel so Whatever ,I am glad i came here and the other sites well......there links sorta got deleted :)Anonimus ;)

[Guest Matt Johnson]

We're pleased you feel that way, Anniette^H^H^H^H^H^H^Honymous. :)Seriously, while the numbers may give us some quantifiable feeling of "how we're doing", nothing beats hearing from the authors and downloaders themselves, and having an open and friendly community to which we can provide a service. :-)Cheers,--M

[Guest Matt Johnson]

I just tried looking for the earlier post (of which I do have a recollection) and failed to find it. We can't, and won't, answer policy questions for Nels here -- you'd probably get far better, and more accurate, answers if you asked him directly!The fact is that everyone who runs this type of site has a choice. AVSIM has chosen to make the Library available with a single level of access, FlightSim.Com has chosen to do otherwise. It's each site's own choice as to what policies it chooses to enact, and if Nels' infrastructure is such that a paid tier of file access is desired or required to keep his service operational, then so be it.I guess the saying is "different strokes for different folks". You folks have got the options between (at least!) two excellent file libraries, for which you all know the pros and cons of each. While it might be a publicist's dream to be able to enter the heads of every single potential customer and drive them to their particular product, the human race doesn't quite work like that :) -- and so you all have a choice, too -- you get to weigh up the pros and cons of each site, and decide which (if not both) you are going to patronize!And having both sites available is a great thing, IMO. I think having a little friendly competition out there keeps both of the sites "on their toes". :)Cheers,--M

[Guest Wichita]

> I agree Ken. I'm getting speeds of 150+ KB/sec which is >about the best this ADSL connection will do. Very seldom do >I see any indication of a slowdown. >>Trip I guess it would depend on what kind of connection and what your used to seeing. The truth is that the download speeds of FS.com library are down substantially from last winter and before. When Fs.com went through the server change back last Dec/Jan the speeds dropped like a rock and have never come back up to where they were.With my cable connection I can download off of Avsim at 350+KB per second which is close to the capped speed on Cox. Over at Fs.com I'm lucky if the DL speed will hold at 90-100KB,sometimes slower,sometimes much slower. I've had it as low as 35KB or less. This is nowhere near the speed that FS.com's librarys used to operate at.David

[Sonar5 3]

As a user of both sites, I read with interest your comments above about stats.I too, get tired of comparisons between the two. Pepsi and Coke seem to co-exist quite well, as do Burger King and McDonalds, as do Home Depot and Lowe's.The facts seem to support that Avsim handles comparative traffic very well.Here is what I do at FS.com.I visit their libraries at off-peak times. I have no intention of buying a membership as that is my choice and I disagree in principle, but I respect their decisions as I am a guest.And yes, I have contributed here, which is a more comfortable system to my liking.Bottom line. there is room for both, and my downloads fly here, and that is where I choose to download from most of the time.Thanks again Matt for all of your hard work. I appreciate it.Regards,Joe :-wave

[Guest Matt Johnson]

Hey Joe,No argument with any of that! For the rare times I need to get a file from FS.Com, I generally do it at around 9am GMT, which is while most of you North Americans are asleep -- and I can usually get in after a few tries. I have much the same reasons as you for not being a member, too, and the same reasoning behind the validity of the membership scheme. :)Pepsi and Coke is a fine analogy, too. :-) They may "fight" for market share, but they coexist nicely. Hell, I've been known to drink both myself. :-lolCheers,--M

[Guest Edam]

B777ER,"The question I was trying to get across is both sites in my opinion are about the same in popularity"What criteria are you basing that on? Do you have some numbers to show?B777ER, Hornit, et al...I just went there and downloaded some files, 1.2 and 1.8 megs. First off, while it doesn't happen every time, I managed to get in on the first shot. My download speeds were an average of 50k a second. 14k lower than what I am used to, but still quite acceptable.As has been stated, the download speeds are dependant on the server load. If 19 billion people happen to be on, and downloading at the same time that you are, yes, there will be slow speeds. I was unable to get to the Microsoft site to download DirectX 8.1b. Does that mean the MS is going to implement a two tier system, and start charging, or does it mean that they couldn't handle the demand for DX 8.1b that was posted recently? As I have stated in the past, this enmity between these two sites is beyond ridiculous. Yes, there are different personalities on each Forum. Yes, some people are frustrated with logging on to flightsim.com. My comment would be that since they must have something good to offer there, that's why there are all the complaints about people not being able to log on, have slow download speeds, and just want something to complain about.If you don't like it, why do you continue to go there? Who's forcing you? Would all of you complainers be just as ready to leave AVSIM if the same thing happened here? THEN where would you go? Enough already! Sheesh! "Beating a dead horse," indeed.

[Wagz 0]

I completely agree with Hornit on this issue. Without trying to start a war over who is better, its just baffles me how Avsim can charge absolutely nothing and have a far superior server system (as I have seen from my experiences).I'm on a cable modem, and a pretty lame one at that compared to what others have been posting about in this thread. My max download speeds are around 170-180 kb/sec which is what I always get here at Avsim. At FS.com downloads start around 25 kb/sec and then drop and average out around 10 kb/sec, even at around 1 or 2 AM American eastern Time (5 to 6 AM GMT). The differance is astonishing.Another intresting twist to the debate is that as an MS Train Sim user as well, I rely on Train-sim.com, also run by Nels. Both sites share the same FS.com server as a matter of fact. Unfortunately for me, Train-sim.com is the ONLY major download site for MSTS users, so I have no choice but to download those files from there. Maybe the problems plauging FS.com are the result of running not 1 but 2 heavily trafficed sites from the same server? I only wish MSTS developers would upload their files to Avsim as well (yes, there is an a very small MSTS section at avsim).I'd like to close by thanking Tom and everyone else at Avsim.com for giving us such a great site, all for free.Joe Wagner