| In a Hurry? |
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| Introduction |
| There comes a time when you are downloading a large file and the download stops part of the way through. If you are using the Windows download applet there is nothing you can do about it; you will just have to start again. A good download manager will allow you to resume the download, picking up where it left off. Good download managers also allow you to start several concurrent download sessions from available resources for the one file. This works by splitting the file into parts with each part downloaded at the same time from the resources. At the end the file is then re-assembled. This can result in dramatic improvements in download speed given a transmission speed limited by internet service providers. Below are a few free download managers short listed for review based on the basic requirements including:
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| Discussion | ||||
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| Other Download Managers | |
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This software category is maintained by volunteer editor Jojoyee. Registered site visitors can contact him by clicking here.
Gigagetis ADWARE and and the Chinese ads ask for Chinese fonts to beinstalled. NOT NICE. Also, NO increase in speed. I'm removing it as wespeak.
I didn't see any Chinese ads there, neither did I install Chinese fonts. Runs smoothly and fast. No issue to me.
FlashGet is rated RED by McAfee SiteAdvisor:
www.siteadvisor.com/sites/flashget.com
Try MetaProducts Download Express 1.9. Its not been updated but works well.
New version 3.0.843 of Free Download Manager has been released.
Anupam Shriwatri, India
Iwould like to configure one to use the SD/USB storage device as thedestination and scratch disk in settings. Is there one like that? Ihave a 4gb HD and can not upgrade with ease. If you can think ofsomething post it here. Thanks for these.
Ifyou are looking for a setting in a download program to download filesto a folder in external storage, this can be done easily. Such as inGigaget, go to Config and change the 'Save To' default folder to yourpreferred folder in an external storage device while it is plugged in.Click Apply Button to enable the change.
Hope this is helpful.
Iwas impressed with Gigaget performance in my old pc running Windows XP.And when i tried to use it in my new Dell Notebook running WindowsVista Home Premium, Internet Explorer crashs and restarts. I've triedso many time reporting to them, but couldn't find a solution yet. Idisagree to use any other DM because Gigaget had made a solidimpression in my mind. And the same problem occured to my friendrunning with same OS. Has anyone undergone the same problem.
Would be glad if any friend can give me a working solution.
Gigaget works well for me on Vista. For browsers, I use Firefox and Chrome, much faster and safer.
IMO, one way to prevent IE from crashes is to disable all add-ons orreset IE settings (Tools/Internet Options/Advanced/Reset). A ratherslow and outdated browser residing in my system but hardly used.
Hi
If you are using Firefox, downThemAll is a good add on.. and you probably wont need separate download manager.. here is the link
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201
Thanks
Itis only useful if you download all the links, images contained in awebpage. I tried it to download a larger file and it's slow.
So, I take it that Gigaget isn't compatable with Opera?
It is stated in the Gigaget homepage that it is compatible with major browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Maxthon.
If you are using Opera, Chrome, or any other newer version ofbrowsers which are not monitored by Gigaget, you will need to copy thedownload link to the clipboard, Gigaget will then auto download thefile as it monitors the clipboard as well. I rely more on this feature.
FDM will not run on my VISTA 64 bit at all .... this disqualifies it being a "best download manager"
Andwho even uses Vista 64 bit as their only OS? That is far from a majorenough reason to strip down it's title here. There are many other farmore important features in it. Also if you even look at the systemrequirements properly, it states that it works in 32-bit versions only.Although it didn't work for me as well (not because I use 64-bit, somethings just don't work on my dated pc), I've gotta disagree with yourselfishly needless comment there. Just move on to some of thealternatives (this is why they exist after all), or whatever.
Ihave been using Giganet, FreeDownload Manager and Star Downloader Freefor a long time. All of them have their own cons and pros. ThoughStarDownloader seems to be not updated for a long time and notintegrated with Flashgot, it is a remarkable download manager.
One thing I like with Star Downloader is when I navigate to thetarget directory for saving, I can see all the files and subfolders inthat directory so that I can check whether I have downloaded it beforeor not. And when the filename is the same it prompts for yourconfirmation for overwriting. It is worth to give a try:
http://www.stardownloader.com/downloads.php (you may click one of the links on the right bottom corner of the page)
Gigagetis my personal favorite. Its very fast, I like that I can integrate avirus scanner, and has a bunch of useful features. and the banner in itblends in well and is a link to gigagets site.
Ijust started using Gigaget--the increase in download speed is amazing.It's integrated with the Flashgot plugin for my Firefox browser--I wishI had found this a long time ago.
Thanks Gizmo and crew!
I try to scan giganet using virustotal.com ...esafe software detected a virus..i dont know if it is a false positive.
Ihave a question that I would like answered. Do you need any specialrules for optimizing download managers to their full potential when youhave a firewall? I'm currently using Gigaget and Commodo.
Iam longtime user of FDM. Have been using only the Lite version eversince two versions have been offered. Not sure why others are havingproblems with SourceForge, I just right-click and choose "save targetas" and I always get the file, not the PHP script... ? Don't know howto help with this...
My only issue with FDM, is it crashes if several dozen IE7 tabs orbrowser instances are open. When it crashes it takes all the IE7instances with it. After yet another crash today, I came here to seewhat else is available.
I used FlashGet years ago when it was freeware, when it becameshareware I abandoned it in favor of FDM. I see that it's freewareagain, so I tried it (the new version). Like the experience postedabove, FlashGet immediately made several outbound connections andtransferred quite a bit of data before I could choke it down with afirewall. I don't know what it stole from me. I uninstalled itimmediately.
I am trying Orbit right now, it appears to be simple and efficient.I really love FDM, but if Orbit can handle the high number of IE7 tabsand/or instances that I like to use, then I will stay with Orbit.
Flashgetis the best download manager. But not the current version but ratherthe classic version 1.73. Flasget provides better control overdownloads. Be it passing custom referrer or specifying number ofconcurrent connections etc. All in all its the best imho.
Ihave been using Orbit for about 3 years now, It has never let me down.It worked well on my ancient dial-up and works just as well on mybroadband.....
-Abhishek
India
Iam using DownThemAll a plugin for Firefox and is incredible how fasterdownloads are compared to standard Firefox downloads. It also supportsresuming interrupted downloads. Regards, Joe
TriedFlashGet and just after opening it the first time it tried to make 12connections to different sites, and that's without me adding adownload! Disabling updates and most options that could cause unwantedconnections, it still tried a few connections at startup. Might belegitimate, but anything that acts like spyware gets uninstalledimmediately.
Silent monitoring doesn't work in Free Download Manager ver. 2.5 build 758.
GigaGetis a trimmed down version of Chinese softare XunLei - Thunder. Thelatest version of XunLei is 5.8, I guess the Gigaget is based on 5.5.The interface is similar but Gigaget removed lots of Ads. It shouldsupport all major protocols including emule, bt, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS,RTSP and RTMP, also Xunlei has its own resource base. A common downloadis the trimmed version but the there is still some characters on theinterface. I am not sure if GigaGet support BT.
Flashget is a software developed by Chinese. Support all majorprotocols, latest version 2.0 (chinese) does not support emule, whilein the stable 1.9.2 support all of them.
Tuoto is another Chinese download manager that support all major protocols. Interface is clean. Here are some reading.
http://leechermods.blogspot.com/2007/07/tuotu-30102-200772.html?showComm...
Another chinese software named "super cyclone" is also popular,clean in interface, but has no English version. Not support emule.
Orbit downloader is another good one, but not support bt and emule
I did a comparison between utorrent and XunLei trimmed version, whenthe download speed of utorrent is struggling arount 10k for two days,the same seeds on XunLei reachs 100k in about 10 minutes.