[Dwedit]

1999 was Dialup for me. The modem said "56k" but didn't actually connect at that speed, it was more like 4.4KB/sec max.

The biggest thing I grabbed then was an overnight bulk-downloading session from animewallpapers.com, made possible by using GetRight. It had a download queue, as well as the "GetRight Browser" which presented the links on a html page as files to select, or other html pages as directories to view.

[calpaterson]

"56k" meant 7 kilobytes per second as a theoretical max. So 4.4 was ok. Everything with networks is done as bits, I think honestly for marketing reasons now

[prawn]

I remember a few years prior to that - I have faint recollections of dialling into BBSes or paying by the hour, so you'd want to plan in advance for what you might do on the internet while connected. A BBS often tracked what you uploaded vs downloaded, so unless you had something to share, you needed to be mindful of what you grabbed.

[theandrewbailey]

56k was bits, your 4.4KB was bytes, which is 36k bits. That was a pretty typical real world speed for dialup around 2000.