Ask Owen

I followed a link to a download on a website called Sourceforge and was asked to pick a mirror. The file downloaded fine, but what’s a mirror?

A mirror is a different website that has a copy of the file for you to download. It helps the main site by offloading the strain that a site may experience due to a number of people wanting to download the same tile at the same. So, while your girlfriend may think that a mirror is somewhere she can apply face moisturizer with, in the computer worlds it’s something completely different.

The great thing about Sourceforge is that most of its mirrors are reputable, so just pick the closest one, it doesn’t matter which one you’ll select.

Related Questions

• How can I find out if any Tweets link to my web page?
  I'm always interested in who's reading my blog and would like to find out if any Tweets link to it. Is there any easy way to do this? As a fellow blogger, I know exactly what you mean. It's always ...
• Why do I need to keep track of the stats on my site?
  My hosting provider includes a selection of statistics packages. Do I really need these? What's the benefit? Statistics are your most important resource! Used properly, web site statistics will tel...
• How can I snipe an auction?
  I keep losing auctions in the last few seconds and want to know if there's something i'm doing wrong. How do other bidders do it? You're referring to a technique called sniping: which is placing a ...