Download manager

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)