Best Free Download Manager
Fri, 01/02/2009 - 12:16 — Jojoyee
Introduction
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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:
- Speed, or lapsed time to download a file
- Interface with web browsers and supported protocols
- Management of downloaded files
- Other features
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Discussion
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Gigaget download
manager is in general the fastest by far for downloading files. It
utilizes cutting-edge Net Grid technology to tap the unused resources
of networked PCs and servers to greatly improve your download speed.
Gigaget monitors major browsers, such as Internet Explorer, and
monitors clipboard for auto downloading once a download link is copied
to the clipboard. It has all the features you would need, safe and easy
to use.
Among the features, it allows you to easily pause, resume or
delete a download, import or export list of downloads, and it has a
powerful task manager with data transfer encryption, auto data
integrity validation and correction, classfication of downloaded files,
etc.
On the negative side, this program in the version under this
review will occasionally prompt an 'about:blank' error message when the
browser home page is set to blank. If you click ok, the program clears
the message and nevertheless proceeds to work well.
Further, Gigaget seems to have stalled in development from the
last version, while its original Chinese version "Xunlei" (or
"Thunder"), one of the most popular download managers among Chinese
users, is still actively updated. The Chinese version contains
advertisements but with powerful P2P leeching capability to accelerate
downloads from BitTorrent and eMule networks. (Thanks to Wedung for the update.)
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 Alternatively Free Download Manager
is a good choice for its stability and support for various browsers
such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari.
It offers simultaneous multi-part downloads, easy restarting and recovery, a powerful scheduler and downloading from mirrors.
It also features downloads from RapidShare, prioritized and
partial torrent downloads, adjusting traffic usage, flash video
download and an upload manager. Management of downloaded files is
supported.
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 Another popular download manager is Orbit Downloader, which is devoted to the new generation web to make downloading any social media easy and fast.
Moreover, Orbit Downloader features Grab Pro to support video
download from sites which use anti-leeching technology like YouTube,
Pandora, etc. It also supports most streaming media protocols and
file-sharing service websites.
Support of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Maxthon together with general download management is included.
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FlashGet download manager is also worth a try as it is designed for speed and management of downloaded files as well.
It increases the download speed by applying multiserver
hyperthread technology and supports HTTP, FTP, BT, eMule and other
various protocols.
FlashGet provides download monitoring with Internet Explorer and
integrates well with FlashGot extension to Firefox too. It supports
unlimited categories for managing downloaded files.
On first running of the program after installation, it comes with
a 'recommended message' at the right panel, but this can be disabled
easily as an option.
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Other Download Managers
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These are a number of other free download managers which were
brought up in comments here or noted from other sources. As they are
not rated in this review, I am listing them here with brief
descriptions and links to their sites for ease of reference.
- Download Accelerator Plus
(free) is a toned down version of commercial DAP Premium but basic
features are available such as multi-connections to download sites,
mirror search, etc. It has an active 'information pane' at the right
panel which is not allowed to disable.
- Star Downloader Free
accelerates your downloads by splitting files into parts and
downloading them from mirror sites. It is also a toned down version
without some of the needed features such as link leecher available to
commercial Star Downloader Pro.
- MetaProducts Download Express
is a small application at a size of about 680 KB. It supports IE and
Firefox browsers and allows you to download individual files from the
Web and FTP sites with multiple channels technology. It features a
Projects list without classification of downloaded files. Download
speed is slower than the top-picked download manager.
- DownThemAll
is a browser entension to add advanced download capabilities to
Firefox. This add-on is useful if you are using Firefox and need to
download many files on a web page at one go. It allows you select all
files or certain file types for download. However, for a selected file
in a larger size, its download speed is much slower than a standalone
download manager such as Gigaget.
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This software category is maintained by volunteer editor Jojoyee. Registered site visitors can contact him by clicking here.
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GigaGet is a trimmed down version of Chinese softare XunLei - Thunder. The latest 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 should support all major protocols including emule, bt, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS, RTSP and RTMP, also Xunlei has its own resource base. A common download is the trimmed version but the there is still some characters on the interface. I am not sure if GigaGet support BT.
Flashget is a software developed by Chinese. Support all major protocols, latest version 2.0 (chinese) does not support emule, while in 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./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, when the download speed of utorrent is struggling arount 10k for two days, the same seeds on XunLei reachs 100k in about 10 minutes.