Computer and Web Articles

I hear the terms “upload” and “download” misused much, much too often. The difference between the two is simple, and I’d like to share it with you today in hopes that you’ll be able to avoid sounding silly in the future.

When you download a file, you’re pulling it from the Internet/from a website DOWN onto your computer. You can download almost anything - documents, music, photos - as long as you’re grabbing it from somewhere else and putting it onto your computer, you’re downloading.

Conversely, if you have something on your computer and you’re putting it UP onto the web, you’re uploading. You upload a file from your computer to a site where it didn’t exist before.

So, as an example, when I put photos from my computer onto my online Flickr photo album (at www.flickr.com), I’m uploading them to the web. If I’m browsing Flickr and I come across a shot of a friend that I really like, I can download it from the web onto my computer.