DISCLAIMER: The history may not be accurate but the explanation, or complication rather, will be. I'm not here for history lessons

"Wow! Thats a large file!"
Well, depends on what way you're looking at it. Are we talking physically or digitally? Bits, or Bytes? Is it a DVD rip of a movie, or is it HD?

I'm only here to talk about bits and bytes. Both are ways to measure computerized data storage. Supposedly a single character, that is any single letter, number or symbol, is 8 bits. One really smart guy decided to *Ahem* SIMPLIFY data storage and make 8 bits, 1 byte.

Are we on the same page so far? 8 bits = 1 byte

Most of the Data I've ever seen, that is, games, text files, videos, programs, etc, is measured in bytes.
Usually the only time I see it in Bits is during downloads and uploads of said data, and the bits is the data transfer speed itself.

Say we're downloading an 8 megabyte file at 1 megabit per second. 1 megabyte is 1024 kilobytes = roughly 1,024,000 bytes. Considering that math isn't my strong suit, to turn 1024 kilobytes into bytes, multiply 1024 by 1024. Then to translate that into bits, multiply by 8. We've got roughly 8-9 million bits? Now you see, the old man who made bytes isn't so bad! I'd rather say 1 million bytes instead of 8million,9hundred thousand-blah-blah bits.

Back to our 1megabit/second transfer rate vs our 8 megabyte file.
I asked my brother "If the download speed is 1 megabit, and the file size is 8 megabytes, how long will it take?"

Him: Uhhhh, 8 seconds

HAHA, no. I used to think the same thing.

1 megabit/second vs 8 magebyte file.
for each megaBYTE it's going to take 8 seconds at 1 megaBIT per second. 8 times 8 is 64. 64 seconds.

Now if the file mentioned were measured in BITS, it would take 8 seconds, also If the download speed was measured in bytes.

I hope this either helped or confused you, yet helped you know the difference between bytes and bits. Because I have no room for another example.