Free Download Manager 1.9

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Free Download Manager 1.9

Milind Bandekar, Dec 11, 2005 1010 hrs IST

Free Download Manager is a full-featured freeware download accelerator and manager.

Resumes broken/interrupted downloads, Faster download speed, Multiple-threaded download, Auto search for mirror-URLs, Scheduled download, Easy integration within the popular browsers, FREEWARE!

Can possibly corrupt downloads on crashes at times (in previous versions)

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FDM also supports multiple threads for faster downloads by splitting the file into several sections, where each section/thread acts as an individual connection and increases the download speed by up to 600%. If needed, you can also specify the minimal and maximal size of each section/thread to further tweak the download speed as per needs.

It also comes with a brilliant feature that looks up/auto searches URL-mirrors for the files that are downloading. This feature smartly matches up the files and looks up for the same version available on different servers. So if in case your download is half way through and for some reason retrieving the file further from that server isn't happening, you can easily switch to another mirror to resume the file from the position it was left last. You can also compare the mirror-URLs speeds and select the fastest one to leech!

You can even define default download parameters for all downloads such as, time-frame between the connection attempts, timeout, size/number of the sections/threads and traffic restrictions according to usage. These settings follow for all the newly added downloads as well.

In the earlier versions we noticed some flaws where FDM usually corrupted files above 50 MB when increasing or decreasing a part file or switching mirrors. This seems to have been fixed in the recent version. We've already download applications like OpenOffice, Auto-Patcher XP and quite a few game demos more than 200 MB each and all of them have been downloaded without any errors despite multiple pause/resume and mirror switching as well.

Another useful feature in this download manager is its scheduler. This tool can connect to the Internet at a set time, download the files you want, launch any program, disconnect or shut down your computer when it is done. So one need not be physically present to start the download or perform the set functions. It also allows users to specify the settings of network usage, such as login and password, maximum number of connections, default group, etc. So you can avoid adjusting these settings every time you need to create new download from the server. FDM also makes downloading the whole web sites from the remote server, easily possible. You can adjust it to download files with the extensions you have specified for and it does it all for you in one go!

And that's not all - it also maintains a detailed log of every activity such as, the server information, number of threads, average speed, time and date, URL, size, location and more in a neat organized layout. So sharing the download link over the network with your friends is a mere copy paste.

Conclusion

FDM is a light-weight but powerful download manager. It's an indispensable tool for download management/acceleration. It offers a vast variety of options to control and manipulate your downloads in a right and the easiest way ever. But more importantly, its freeware! :)

Give FDM a try and I'm sure it's going to be your default download manager!