Those aren’t good solutions, they’re workarounds - and if you think about them even slightly you’ll realize they’re not very good:

1. The interface requiring multiple downloads prevents automation or simply waiting out a large transfer, and not having a robust automated retry mechanism ensures wasted time and increases the odds of data loss.

2. Few people have a high-speed free WiFi network nearby. You’re not getting better results at Starbucks or the local library, and Google’s campus networks require logins even if you are one of the few people who lives near one.

3. Setting up a VPS and running downloads from a web app requires money and skills most people don’t have, especially if you care about not accidentally leaking your personal data. If you have enough data to matter, you’ll also hit many providers quota limits or bandwidth charges. If you navigate all of those challenges, you still haven’t solved the problem of getting it home - at best you can now use rsync to remove the manual component of the second transfer.

“Take your laptop to a google campus and download on their wifi.”

LoL

i think he's just trolling - can't be that stupid.

GoogleGuest is an unsecured SSID at every campus, if you have one nearby. It generally reaches the parking lots (which are conveniently empty right now)

https://about.google/intl/en_us/locations/ ... not as isolated as I thought, waiting patiently for the geo-data people to work out an approximate census of people who live within a 50-mile radius of a google office. :-)