There’s a joke about maven downloading half the internet. Apparently p2 talks to the other half maven does not download.

Earlier you’d go get a coffee every time you clicked the eclipse update manager. With the eclipse servers taking a beating and download speeds really going slow you better grab lunch.

But wait there’s another nifty “hack”: Don’t talk to the eclipse servers.

To make the p2 update manager faster (assuming you aren’t downloading from the eclipse mirror sites):

  • Edit your hosts file (/etc/hosts or c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts)
  • Add a fake alias for the download server: 
    127.0.0.10 download.eclipse.org

Open the update manager again, enjoy the amazing speeds, remember to remove the line if you indeed want to talk to the eclipse servers.