Old protocols have their advantages

If you were fretting about the Ubuntu mirrors being so slow, remember that the installer defaults to using HTTP, rather than FTP.

Download speed of KDE4.0.4 in hardy-backports from http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ – 20KB/s.
Download speed of KDE4.0.4 in hardy-backports from ftp://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ – 150KB/s
Happiness at remembering old, forgotten protocols – priceless

Warning: download speeds can go down as well as up..