Author Topic: Download Managers (Read 20,340 times)

Earthcoder · « **on:** June 14, 2007, 04:00 PM »

Hi all, Ive done a search and found info about the download managers, but there so many and cant work out what the best one is for my needs.

can anyone suggest one, that has following features:

*.zip to Zip folder With no prompting, So on a site you click the zip, it does not come up saying where do want to save this file, it just downloads stright away and puts into a folder called Zips

*.exe Files, has Prompting but allows me to chosse a catagory from list, for what folder i want to save it in, Not browsing my computer for the right folder.

Websites support, so if download from same website, the files will be saved to the website folder no prompting.

Opera Does this sort off, But its not perfect.

I dont care about speed etc, The main things is you click and nothing prompts you and nothing loads up, just does it and adds to folder

superboyac · « **Reply #1 on:** June 14, 2007, 04:41 PM »

Here's a good post summarizing a bunch of download managers:
DC download managers

I think most of the good ones will do what you're asking. I tried a few of them a while ago, the ones I liked were Reget and Internet Download Manager. But it was overkill for me, I just don't download that much off of the internet.

Hirudin · « **Reply #2 on:** June 14, 2007, 05:39 PM »

A couple years ago I tried a bunch of the download managers available and decided that Star Downloader was the best. I haven't used it for a long time though, so I can't remember if it had the features you need...

I hope this somehow helps...

Darwin · « **Reply #3 on:** June 14, 2007, 06:19 PM »

Yeah - I have a licence for Stardownloader Pro but like Hirudin haven't used it in a while (lots of sites have policies about cutting you off if you use a download manager, so I use it sparingly). Anway:

*.zip to Zip folder With no prompting, So on a site you click the zip, it does not come up saying where do want to save this file, it just downloads stright away and puts into a folder called Zips
Definitely handles this in both the Free and the Pro versions

*.exe Files, has Prompting but allows me to chosse a catagory from list, for what folder i want to save it in, Not browsing my computer for the right folder.
Yes, though I am less positive than about the above.

Websites support, so if download from same website, the files will be saved to the website folder no prompting.
I don't think so, but have never needed this functionality.

Other points about Stardownloader to consider - development seems to be dead no updates in over a year, despite the promise of one last March.

Other downloaders that will probably do what you need are Neodownloader and Aaron's Web Vacuum.

aruvam · « **Reply #4 on:** June 14, 2007, 08:59 PM »

Free download manager may be able to let you do that - http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
They have a decent category based filtering system...

elpresi · « **Reply #5 on:** June 14, 2007, 11:34 PM »

I am pretty sure that FreeDownloadManager or Orbit can do what you want (I can´t check right now but I know that at least one of them has a "remember path for this type of file option check").
Both are very nice (they have replaced Flashget in my case)
http://www.orbitdownloader.com/

iphigenie · « **Reply #6 on:** June 15, 2007, 08:21 AM »

I havent tried the "download without a question" option, but IDM (not free) can certainly do the category -> folder bit. I suspect it might do the ask/dont ask option as well, will go and have a try.

I must say I have never been penalised on any site for using a download manager. Could just be the sites I chose to visit and the amount of downloads I do.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #7 on:** June 15, 2007, 08:37 AM »

Except for not seeing anything onscreen you can achieve both of these (well nearly) for almost any download manager you choose by simply installing something like FileBox Extender (doesn't work on Vista). Then you can set up a list of folders and quickly choose the right folder from the usual save dialogue (they are all in a single drop down menu).

nosh · « **Reply #8 on:** June 15, 2007, 11:03 AM »

IDM is brilliant, but not free. It has the best site-grabber I've seen built in. I switched from GetRight to IDM around a year back and the boost in speed was significant. It's v.light on resources, without doubt one of the best pieces of software on my system. In freeware, there's FlashGet.

Darwin · « **Reply #9 on:** June 15, 2007, 01:17 PM »

IDM sounds interesting - I'll have to take a look, nosh. Thanks!

nosh · « **Reply #10 on:** June 15, 2007, 01:28 PM »

I'm sure you'll love it. I remember testing quite a few big players in this category before settling for IDM. It'll need a bit of configuring though.

iphigenie · « **Reply #11 on:** June 16, 2007, 10:23 AM »

I had a quick look around the IDM options and couldn't find a way to make a "category" download automatically.

There are options to make URLs sent to clipboard download automatically, or to set up a key which will force downloading via IDM, but no way I could see in the interface to say "for this category, just start downloading"

Obviously there is both the queue option and the site grabber to get a lot of files downloaded at once, but neiter are exactly the thing you wanted.

nosh · « **Reply #12 on:** June 16, 2007, 04:02 PM »

@iphigenie: You can't set up IDM to download all filetypes belonging to a specific category automatically but you can ask it to download individual filetypes automatically. So all that needs to be done is copy-paste all of a category's extensions to the "download automatically" box.
[attach]

iphigenie · « **Reply #13 on:** June 16, 2007, 06:49 PM »

@nosh: That feature doesn't quite work that way for me - it just triggers IDM to kick in, but i still get the pop up box asking me to say "ok".

Any extensions not in that box, IDM does not kick in and Opera ends up handling the download.

Maybe it is because i use opera, not firefox or ie?

nosh · « **Reply #14 on:** June 17, 2007, 02:25 AM »

Quote

That feature doesn't quite work that way for me - it just triggers IDM to kick in, but i still get the pop up box asking me to say "ok".

The popup box can be completely avoided by unchecking the "show start download dialog" & checking the "start downloading immediately..." options.
[attachimg=#]
The downside to this is, IDM will download files you haven't requested. If you have the "download completed" popup & sound notification disabled the process will be completely transparent, not really recommended.

My options are set to just the opposite of what I've suggested above - having the "start downloading immediately..." enabled saves a bit of time but smaller files (that I haven't requested) get downloaded before I have a chance to cancel them.

Quote

Any extensions not in that box, IDM does not kick in and Opera ends up handling the download.
Maybe it is because i use opera, not firefox or ie?

You're right, the integration doesn't seem to be as good on Opera... even the force download hotkey didn't work for me. The only way I could get IDM to kick in for sure was to copy the file url to the clipboard. I haven't tried this but if there is a certain filetype you always want to download with IDM you could disable it completely in Opera's download options.

Earthcoder · « **Reply #15 on:** June 19, 2007, 10:51 AM »

Cheers for all the help.

At the moment i got 10 download managers installed on my pc, and now cant save anything with out right click save as

so in the progress of uninstalling

Nxqd3051990 · « **Reply #16 on:** July 17, 2007, 12:36 PM »

@iphigenie For Opera, you should use oGe thttp://my.opera.com/Lex1/blog/index.dml/tag/oGet
IDM is my choice too

. Very light weight and simple

nXqd

iphigenie · « **Reply #17 on:** July 18, 2007, 09:20 AM »

Thanks for the reference - this ads "download with ..." to the menu?

icekin · « **Reply #18 on:** August 17, 2007, 01:19 AM »

The best Download manager I ever used was DLExpert. Did what it said, no feature bloat. Sadly it has not been updated in ages. The last version and a review of it is here : http://www.buzzys.net/dlexpert.html

PhilB66 · « **Reply #19 on:** April 02, 2009, 07:38 AM »

Quote from: god hates all on April 02, 2009, 07:21 AM

can anyone give me KEY for any version of IDM

NO

yoyuo · « **Reply #20 on:** April 28, 2009, 03:01 AM »

I want freeware too.

Innuendo · « **Reply #21 on:** April 30, 2009, 05:51 PM »

If someone wants freeware then Orbit Downloader should be at the top of your list for programs to examine.

If one is willing to shell out some money then my suggestion is to look at Internet Download Accelerator from http://www.westbyte.com. For my uses it was a better fit than IDM, but I can see why someone would choose it over IDA.