What's the difference between watching and downloading from say, YouTube, or just about any other website with the similar nature?
I'm curious if I could determine if someone is just watching the content or downloading it (through some plugin/application grabber) from the player I provided on the website I wanted to create.
Does data transfer from point a (host) to point b (client) differ from downloading and watching?
Unless you check the speed of transfer of file, I don't think even that will allow you to check if the user is downloading or viewing. Browsers usually download and buffer. Technically, this is impossible to detect.
The browser request is the same as buffering request or download request. Hence, it is not possible to detect.