Your browser will probably support both modes, but many browsers impose a significant overhead when you download large files in http mode, and experience shows that your download will easily fail due to a client timeout - that we cannot help ;-)

This is why we recommend download in ftp mode.

However, your site may have a firewall configuration that blocks traffic in ftp mode, in which case you have no other choice than http mode.

In any case it is advisable to install a download manager to take care of downloads. A download manager is a program that is installed as an extension to your browser. Whenever you start a download in your browser, the download manager takes over. It runs in the background, and it will automatically split the download job in smaller pieces. In case of failure it will automatically restablish the connection and continue the download.

There are dozens of products available for this purpose, commercial as well as free. Most of these products are Windows only, but download managers also exist for the UNIX platforms.