Download speeds & torrents

I was under the impression torrents were supposed to download at amazingly fast speeds: thus the name 'torrent' as in 'torrential' like a torrential downpour being a burly rain storm. Anyway- I'm really lucky (and I mean REALLY lucky) if I get a torrent to download at a steady 40kbps. They usually download at 10-35kbps and the speed jumps up and down alot. If was to go to, say, Nvidia and download the newest driver, it downloads at a minimum of 300kbps, usually over 425kbps. What's up with this? Is there a way I can get torrents by using just a regular download thru my browser and not have to use a client like BitComet or utorrent? It's just so S L O W . . .
Any help, ideas, suggestions, or links will be appreciated.

hopperdave2000

 

A torrent is like a "torrential downpour" - they don't last forever. The speed is on a curve most of the time.. slow in the beginning and as a torrent get more popular it gets faster with more people joining and sharing (the key word) and as people leave the torrent it will slow down.. so if your in what they call the swarm or high point of the share you'll get faster DLs... as it tapers off and there are fewer hosts it generally gets slower.
Plus other factors like the hosts bandwidth & any ISP throttling...

 

There is no way to download a torrent without a Bittorrent client. Download speed depends mainly on the ratio of seeders to leechers and the upload speeds of those seeders/leechers. BT was originally designed to deliver large files economically by utilizing the excess bandwidth of those downloading files through the protocol. Faster download speeds are a side effect.

 

Also don't forget that there are many people who, after the download is complete, are too mean to share their bandwidth as seeders....That's why leechers are usually 7 to 1 compared to seeders....

 

Thanx for the info. I try to always re-seed whatever I download, until I get a 1:1 ratio minimum. Alot of times, I'll just let it seed all day while I'm at work, there's no need to stop it... anyway, thanx again for the info guys.

hopperdave2000