7:00 AM
Paul B
The other day for work I had to download an update for a component in one of our custom applications, and the file was almost 2GB in size. The company recommended downloading it with a download manager with resume capabilities. It's been a while since I've thought about download managers. I haven't really used one since the dial-up days.
Anyway, I went hunting for a good one to use, and I found it. It's a free and open source one called Free Download Manager (FDM).
From their page:
What is Free Download Manager? It is a powerful, easy-to-use and absolutely free download accelerator and manager. Moreover, FDM is 100% safe, open-source software distributed under GPL license.They offer the following features:
- Increase your download speed and resume broken downloads
FDM accelerates downloads by splitting files into sections and then downloading them simultaneously. As a result download speed increases up to 600%, or even more! FDM can also resume broken downloads so you needn`t start downloading from the beginning after casual interruption. - HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent support
FDM lets you download files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. You can also download files using BitTorrent protocol. - Enjoy safer and more rewarding downloading
You can read what other community members say about the file you are going to download, and also leave your own opinion about the file you downloaded. In this way FDM users are always warned against useless or malicious files. - GNU General Public License
Free download manager is now open-source software released under GNU GPL.
When I was downloading the update for my company the built in browser download manager said the download was going to take four hours! Ouch! Using Free Download Manager it only took an hour. Not bad!
Do you use a download manager? If it isn't FDM, which one do you use? Why do you like it? Let us know in the comments!
