Download managers: Get your fingers out of my browser!!

[superboyac]

I like download managers in general.  Most of them are pretty decent and I have no problem with them for the most part.  The only issue I have is that they make it VERY hard to control.  You all know what I mean.  Occasionally, you want the download manager to NOT get involved in a particular download.  Most of the ones I've tried make this a painful process.  First, most of them have a hotkey combo to bypass the download manager...but it doesn't always work.  I've felt they hardly ever work.  but that may be just me.  Fine.  Secondly, you may say "fuck it" and just exit/close the entire download manager application.  I don't mean minimize to tray...I mean really close it.  BUT...even when you do this, it always gets reincarnated as soon as you click a program to download.  Then you search through the options to try to turn that feature off, but it will not be clear which option controls that.  Then, after fiddling around for a while, you realize that it's not downloading anything at all now!

I just need a simple bypass option sometimes.  And for pete's sake, when I turn the program off...STAY OFF.  They all get reanimated like some bad zombie movie.  One of the few genres of programs that tend to do that universally.

[sajman99]

True enough these Browser Helper Objects can sometimes be Browser Annoying Objects.

I've used Internet Download Manager for a long while, and it's usually easy to override that download manager with the default ALT + mouse click. Only thing is I sometimes release ALT too soon and IDM steps up anyway. But the overall experience is pretty smooth-- it's there when I need it and absent when unwanted.

[40hz]

I feel your pain. I get pretty snarked when anything on my machine springs into action because IT decided it was needed.

I use Free Download Manager. I set it to only come up if I do a control-click on a download link. The rest of the time, the downloads are handled by the browser.  

[superboyac]

Yeah, IDM is my favorite of the bunch.  But it's hell turning it off for good without uninstalling it.

I've tried FDM several times, and I still don't know how to set it up to ONLY download when I do the cnrl-click.  But you don't have to bother explaining it, I'm not using it currently.  I'm just complaining that's all.  I'm guessing I'm going to do a lot of posting in this sub-forum from here on out.  Just complaints.

[app103]

I have been using Flashget for years, but without the BHO installed. When I started using it, it was in an unsupported browser and I had to use the drop target feature, where you drag a link to be downloaded from your browser to a little box to activate it. This required me to make the conscious decision to launch the download manager by choice, first, then drag the links to it to be downloaded. It does not pop up when I do not want it to...it can't.

[40hz]

I've tried FDM several times, and I still don't know how to set it up to ONLY download when I do the cnrl-click.  But you don't have to bother explaining it, I'm not using it currently.  

-superboyac (November 12, 2010, 04:13 PM)

Too late! I already have a screenshot in my archives!

It's in the Monitoring panel under <Options> <Settings>. Also note that nifty Don't monitor for files smaller than... feature.  Very useful. Very cool.



And it's ALT-click rather than CTRL-click. I keep forgetting I've remapped my keyboard a little bit.

[f0dder]

FireFox + DownThemAll - as unobtrusive as it gets. Right-clicking a file gives you normal "save as" and a "save link with DownThemAll", single-left-clicking pops up the standard FireFox "save file..." dialog, with added "DownThemAll" and "DTA OneClick" options.

It isn't 100% perfect as it's browser based, so if you have a really fast connection the download process can stall FireFox a bit... but it works very well for my needs, resume as well as multiple-connection speedup. And it integrates pretty well with sessions-checking crap.

[bob99]

fOdder,
Thanks for the DownThemAll suggestion.  Works great for my occasional needs.

[y0himba]

Down Them All is way more powerful than just a download manager.  There are so many things it can be used for like grabbing all the images/archives/media out of a page in one click...

[bob99]

I used it to download all the online HTML help files (on-line manual) of a program I use so I could have a copy to refer to when I am off-line. It was much easier than page by page saves.  Had all 102 files in about 60 seconds.

[superboyac]

Here's a situation not easily resolved:
I want to install 3 different download managers.  But I need to be able to completely (COMPLETELY) disable the other two before using the third.  Is that even possible?  Not from what I've seen.  You'd have to uninstall to really do that.  Comments?

[sajman99]

Yes, I believe it's possible to install and use multiple download managers without significant problems.

You'll want to go to the monitoring settings of each download manager to configure your preferences. Who's primary as to clipboard, clicks, flash, etc.? Probably not a good idea to have multiple managers battling each other!

I have IDM (primary), FlashGet (classic), and Orbit (not used much anymore) without known conflict. I recently turned off Orbit's flash/streaming media catcher because I added .swf into IDM's download panel. (ie. to avoid duplicate function)

[40hz]

Here's a situation not easily resolved:
I want to install 3 different download managers.  But I need to be able to completely (COMPLETELY) disable the other two before using the third.  Is that even possible?  Not from what I've seen.  You'd have to uninstall to really do that.  Comments?

-superboyac (November 13, 2010, 11:47 AM)

+1 with sanjman99. Don't know about disabling a DLM completely. But I too have a couple of different managers on my system (DTA + FDM) that seem to coexist without problems.

But if you're using Firefox, the FlashGot  add-on will let you pick/switch back and forth with whichever download managers you have installed on your system.

This is what I use FWIW.

[sajman99]

I agree with 40hz, FlashGot is highly recommended!

[f0dder]

I used it to download all the online HTML help files (on-line manual) of a program I use so I could have a copy to refer to when I am off-line. It was much easier than page by page saves.  Had all 102 files in about 60 seconds.

-bob99 (November 13, 2010, 09:20 AM)

You might want to check out ScrapBook - while it doesn't handle "grab all links on a page", it's very useful for quickly for (fully) saving a single page for offline viewing. It's a tool I'm pretty happy to have in my repository

[superboyac]

Ah!  Flashgot!  I forgot about that.  Finally, a use for it that makes sense.  I always thought Flashgot was a weird program.  Everything it does, it seems like a download manager, but it explicitely states that it's not.  So you install it anyway.  Then, you use it along with your download manager, let's say IDM.  But IDM works fine without flashgot, and IDM has all the same options as flashgot.  So what is flashgot really doing?  That's the situation I ran into a couple of times, so I decided I really don't need flashgot.

But having multiple download managers now make flashgot useful.  Maybe I'll give it a shot now.  I just was never clear on flashgot's exact purpose.

[40hz]

I used it to download all the online HTML help files (on-line manual) of a program I use so I could have a copy to refer to when I am off-line. It was much easier than page by page saves.  Had all 102 files in about 60 seconds.

-bob99 (November 13, 2010, 09:20 AM)

You might want to check out ScrapBook - while it doesn't handle "grab all links on a page", it's very useful for quickly for (fully) saving a single page for offline viewing. It's a tool I'm pretty happy to have in my repository

-f0dder (November 14, 2010, 12:27 PM)

@fodder: nice find. I hadn't heard about ScrapBook.  

Another alternative for grabbing single web pages is a utility called Canaware NetNotes. It allows you to download complete pages and save them to "libraries" on your PC.

The thing I really like is that it saves the actual HTML and doesn't do anything proprietary to them or use a database.  And the "libraries" you create are just standard folders on your hard drive.  As a result, it's super light on resources - and the saved pages are viewable in anything that can read a webpage as opposed to just NetNotes itself. There's a plugin that puts it in the context menu so it's accessible via a right click from within your browser. Great tool. I use it to compile and tag collections of tech data and how-to articles for my personal knowledgebase.
 




Get it here

[f0dder]

Scrapbook also saves the plain files, but the pages can be a bit tricky to find since the folder names the scraps are stored in are timestamps. It also stored a "scrapbook.rdf" and "cache.rdf" - I dunno if scrapbook can rebuild them if they go missing.

I hardly ever bookmark anything these days; sites I visit frequently have shortcuts on mouser's LaunchBarCommander, other sites are saved in browser history (and thus available fast by searching in the firefox address bar), sites I need to check out later are saved in browser session (I'm SO looking forward to FF4/Panorama so I can group stuff and reduce visual clutter!), and stuff I might check back on a lot later is saved to scrapbook; it really sucks when you need a piece of information and the hosting site is gone, or the URL scheme changed.

[cyberdiva]

At one time or another, I recall installing Scrapbook, Canaware NetNotes, and several other programs with similar purposes, but I never got into the habit of using any of them.  I don't really know why.  What I have gotten into the habit of using is Surfulater.  I use it to capture, organize, and retrieve web pages (whole or in part), as well as Word documents and text files.  I think what won me over about Surfulater were the ease with which I could organize my information and its very fast search mechanism.   Surfulater is a bit pricey, but the $79 price tag permits you to use it on up to five computers.