Why Does MSDN Throttle Non-IE Downloads?

Saturday, August 9th 2014, 12:00:00 am

I wanted to download the ISO for Microsoft SQL Server from MSDN, today. I started the download from Safari on OS X. The download plateaued at 377 Kb/s. Um, WTF?

I have “high-speed” Internet. So, I fired up a Windows 8.1 VM in VMware Fusion. I started the download from IE 10. It plateaued at 2 Mb/s. Um, WTF?

I killed that download and went back to Safari. The download plateaued at 379 Kb/s.

I killed that download and went back to IE 10. The download plateaued at 2.4 Mb/s.

Um, WTF?

So, thanks, MSDN. Thanks for screwing my download experience.

Bollocks.