i don't get the point of this thread. 1st - there is no way you can compress a 700M file and make it 50M or so unless it's a file that was prepared for compression (a special file that is only used to demonstrate that this can be done, same block or char for n times or something like that)
2nd - it's not very important what software you use or what protocol is used. if you have a 100M connection, the other party has a 100M connection and there is no problem between the 2 computers (like a slow router or something) then you will get the 100M speed. it is not important what protocol is used (except SMTP cause when you attach something to the mail the file size grows).
usually if you download something form yahoo or download.com the speed you have is the bandwidth that's available to you in that moment. if you download from other sites/ftp's/ ... the speed you get might be lower because the bandwidth available on the other side is lower. on torrents you get very good speeds cause when there are lot's of seeds and not so many leech there is a lot of bw available.
to give you an answer to your question, the best way to download something from the internet is to use any software you have available for that protocol (torrent client / ftp client / internet browser /...) and you will get the best possible speed.
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