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Simple download manager?

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rjbull:
I thought of adding to an earlier thread, but SMF pointed out it was over 120 days old and would I like to start a new one...

I'm interested in a "simple download manager," in that all I really want to do is schedule downloads for slack times.  However, I ideally want it to meet these requirements:


* Run on Win98
* Can use a proxy.pac file, or read whatever proxy Internet Explorer is using (is that wininet technology?)
* Portable, avoiding he Registry and using relative paths
* Either built-in scheduler, or, easy control from external scheduler
* Can be used in a commercial environment
I haven't yet seen anything that matches all those; even FDM isn't really portable.  Does anyone have any suggestions, please?

Thanks in advance...

iphigenie:
most portable does not integrate a scheduler, since they are by nature less portable... and the browser integration often requires some registry stuff. So you lose features if you want fully portable.

That is where the challenge is

I have seen some download managers that can catch urls in the clipboard, and that needs no installation, but you wont just be able to click a link and have a download manager kick in

I know of none that is really portable besides the wget based ones, but the capture of urls is more manual

You could get opera portable or firefox portable with a download manager extension, but thats a bit overkill

I know that some download managers have an "email me a link and i will queue this" feature, and some routers have a download queue feature on the router itself - thats the ultimate portable solution except the files end up in the wrong place if you are away from home.

update: in my mountain of links i find this http://www.webxpace.net/software/#Downldr - i havent tried it much and most of it is controlled via a text config, but it seems to be an "unpack and run straight" type of tool

tinjaw:
If this needs to be portable AND scheduleable, does that mean you are going to leave the portable storage device with the program in the computer for the duration of both the time until the download starts and the time it takes to download? Or by "portable" do you mean you can drag and drop the applications folders to the desktop computer and run it from the desktop without a need for some kind of setup/installer? Can we count on access to the Window's Task Scheduler?

4wd:
Use wget and the Task Scheduler.

It'll do HTTP, HTTPS and FTP, download to wherever you like, it's a CLI command so doesn't leave traces all over the computer, runs on all versions of Windows, and has more options than you can shake a stick at.

Simple example: wget.exe "http://somewhere.net/somefile.zip"

wget is at http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/, a search of Google will turn up precompiled binaries.

If you go to sourceforge.net and search for wget you can also get quite a few GUIs for Windows if you need one, eg. http://sourceforge.net/projects/wwget/ is a Windows GUI that allows scheduling.

Oh yeah, it's also GPL so no problem with commercial environment.

rjbull:
Thanks, folks...  It didn't occur to me that portability and scheduled operation aren't really compatible, but I see what you mean.  I think I should drop "portable" in favour of "no-install," i.e., not needing full admin rights on the computer (tinjaw, you hit the nail on the head).  That still leaves me feeling uneasy at FDM, for example, which in "portable" mode still writes to the host computer's Registry.  It clears up when it exits, but that won't happen in a crash, and also apparently doesn't remember all its settings when used in portable mode.  There's a message in their forums about this, without any replies.

I'm not so bothered about browser integration as I expect to compile lists of URLs manually.  There are utilities like tranglos' VISIT, for example, which capture URLs from the clipboard (I haven't tried this one yet).  I assume most host computers will already have schedulers built-in.  I normally use the one in PowerPro, but could use something else if necessary.

@iphigenie:
i find this http://www.webxpace.net/software/#Downldr - i havent tried it much and most of it is controlled via a text config, but it seems to be an "unpack and run straight" type of tool
--- End quote ---

That looks nice, small and truly portable.  Apparently the author listens to his "customers," too.  However, it doesn't understand proxy.pac files, nor is there any provision I can see for scheduling.  Star Downloader is another one that expects you to have fixed proxy details, which rules it out for me.  Much kudos to Martin Aignesberger for WebSite-Watcher and Local Website Archive, also to Firefox, K-Meleon and Great News, all of which can be set to use whatever proxy stuff IE is using.

@4wd:
I was scared of wget on the grounds I probably wouldn't understand GNUishness   :-[  I suppose I'll have not choice but to check it out!  Thanks for the link, especially for the GUI shells.

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