Jump to content

Internet Download Manager


Steve

Recommended Posts

This is a download accelerator/manager for Windows. It has a few functions, including being able to accelerate downloads, download all files linked on a particular page etc., but what's particularly cool about it is its ability to be able to download streaming audio/video.

 

You can have it integrate into your web browser - and if you have multiple web browsers installed, you can choose which one(s) it integrates into - and then when you play an audio or video stream on a web page, a little button appears that you can press to download the audio/video file: -

 

http://i.imgur.com/2IEZqyb.jpg

 

That's an example with a random mix I clicked on at Mixcloud. You can use sites like OffLiberty to download some stuff that's streaming only, but IDM does a way better job as it works with loads more sites, it's integrated into the browser, so you don't have to copy and paste links into a different site, it lets you choose from the available streams, so, for example, there might be 3 different streams that are low, medium and high quality and you can choose which you want, and it will also accelerate the download where possible. The download acceleration works by breaking up a file into multiple pieces, then making multiple connections to the server to grab each piece. If the server is slow or is set up to deliberately limit speed, it really can massively accelerate the download time.

 

It's not free, although there is a free, time-limited trial. I wouldn't recommend this if you just want a good download accelerator/manager - not that it isn't good at that, but it's not worth paying for just for that IMO - but I would recommend it if you regularly find yourself watching/listening to streaming video/audio and thinking "I wish I could download and keep this".

 

http://www.internetdownloadmanager.com/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Sites like that almost always only accept multiple connections to the server from one IP address if you have a premium account.

 

It will massively increase download speeds where you can make multiple connections to the server, and where the server throttles speed though. For example, YouTube throttles the speed of videos so if you try and download a huge video it can take ages. Here's a video I downloaded with IDM that's over 1GB in size: -

 

http://i.imgur.com/kBvnuri.jpg

 

It took less than 2 minutes to download because it made a ton of connections to the server.

 

So it's only really worth buying for that, and for its ability to be able to grab media that you wouldn't normally be able to download as there's no download option.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...