Friends of Eclipse is a special program that allows you to help the Eclipse Foundation provide services to the Eclipse community.  Everyone that makes a donation of US$35 or more receives special ‘Friends’ benefits.  One of these benefits is access to the ‘Friends of Eclipse’ download server.

Now you might ask what is so special about the ‘Friends of Eclipse’ download server?  Well the Galileo release is coming and with it brings the crush of people looking to download the latest and greatest.  We try to do our best to use mirrors and torrents to off load the traffic but things can still get a bit busy.  The Friends download server is setup with dedicated bandwidth provided by the Foundation, so the download will be faster.    We also freeze the download servers for about 24 hours before the Galileo release to allow the mirrors to synchronize.  The Friends server will have the Galileo downloads available during this time, so you can get it sooner.

So Friends will get the Galileo release Faster and Sooner.  At the same time, you get to help support the Eclipse community.  Please considering joining now.

From http://ianskerrett.wordpress.com