Download manager
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Definition
“A download manager is a computer program designed to download files from the Internet, unlike a web browser, which is mainly intended to browse webpages on the World Wide Web (with file downloading being of secondary importance).” (Wikipedia, retrieved 12:57, 4 June 2007 (MEST)).
Typically, a download manager can handle several different protocols, either natively or by providing an interface to external programs. In addition, it may provide other functionalities like:
- resume broken or paused downloads
- mirroring (follow links in a website and download lots of files)
- get files from mirror sites or file-sharing peer-to-peer services such as BitTorrent.
Functionalities
Various download managers provides various functionalities. Daniel K. Schneider isn't aware of a tool that "can do all".
Protocol support
- HTTP
- HTTPS
- FTP
- MMS
- RTSP
- BitTorrent
- Metalink
- Podcast
- Flash
- Video
- eMule
Software
- Mirroring web sites
- Wget is a popular mirroring tool for websites (Http and Ftp). Command line tool.
- DownThemAll, a Mozilla Firefox extension with less functionality, but easy to use.
- Multi protocol downloader
- Flashget (Wikipedia article) is a popular Windows tool
- Flashgot, a popular Mozilla/Firefox extension meant to handle single and massive ("all" and "selection") downloads with several external download managers.
Links
- Download manager (Wikipedia)
- Comparison of download managers (Wikipedia)
- List of download managers (Wikipedia)