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.