Why different file sizes ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger Bourne
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R

Roger Bourne

Hello all,

I always wondered the about following:
I download every now and then software from P2P. I have noticed that
there is always several hits that are found by the P2P concerning my
search request. What I find strange (and a little worrisome too) is
that for the the same software version (E.g. 1.513) there are many hits
that are found BUT all have different sizes. (E.g. 1st hit for
namelesssoftware 1.513 is a file of 2.00MB, 2nd hit is a file of 2.1MB,
3rd hit is file of 2.7MB, ....). All files seem to of the same type:
*.zip or *.exe or *.rar, so the size difference can't be attributed to
dissimilar packaging formats.
What is the most probable explanation for this ?
Is the size difference due to viruses that are maliciously introduced ?

Curious about this phenemenon.

Kind regards,
-Roger
 
Difference in archives, some may contain a readme, some don't. Also, not all
archivers will, given identical files, produce identical archives, as not
all of them use the same zip algorithm, though they are all compatible.
 
I download every now and then software from P2P. I have noticed that
there is always several hits that are found by the P2P concerning my
search request. What I find strange (and a little worrisome too) is
that for the the same software version (E.g. 1.513) there are many hits
that are found BUT all have different sizes. (E.g. 1st hit for
namelesssoftware 1.513 is a file of 2.00MB, 2nd hit is a file of 2.1MB,
3rd hit is file of 2.7MB, ....). All files seem to of the same type:
*.zip or *.exe or *.rar, so the size difference can't be attributed to
dissimilar packaging formats.
Click to expand...

Hope this doesn't sound unduly harsh, but if the author of whatever
software you searched for had intended their software to be distributed
by P2P, they would have provided a hash for the file on their website -
CRC, MD5 or SHA1. This would remove all worry about filesizes as you
could verify the hash before or after downloading depending on what kind
of P2P software you were using - or the software may even hide all hits
which do not match the correct hash.

Since the software you are searching for doesn't have a hash, I'd make
the assumption that the author would probably not be too happy to find
people trading it on P2P... Downloading random software from P2P on the
basis of filename alone and running it is pretty much suicidal in health
terms for your PC.

Ben
 
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