I'm just curious why people use download managers these days. Over the years I've used all manner of different ones that have come and gone. However, these days, the fact is, I find that I rarely need one (if at all), for several reasons:
- Typically Internet speeds are much faster than they used to be. Dial-up is no longer the default connection. Using a download manager where you can pause and resume with a dial-up connection makes a lot of sense, but on connections where you can easily download tens of megabytes in minutes, there doesn't seem to be as greater imperative.
- I just don't download much from websites anymore! Most of my big downloads usually come from torrents or peer-to-peer networks, for which you have to use some kind of client anyway that typically supports all of the features you'd expect of a download manager.
- Browsers have gotten smarter and handle downloads more gracefully (one thing that I have always liked about Firefox over IE). Granted, most browsers don't have a full-on download manager built in, but if all you want is to pause/resume downloads then the built-in manager should be sufficient.
- If you're downloading gigabytes of pr0n, warez, m0viez or other (potentially) illegal material then you should be doing anyway so you shouldn't need a download manager either.
So, I'm curious... why do people need download managers? What do they allow you to do that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do?
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I'm not going to address your points specifically, but here are my thoughts.
I used Free Download Manager a while back to help a friend out at work. He was on dialup, and had a lot of thing he needed downloaded, like Setup files/updates, random images, etc, the list goes on. It was really nice to be able to throttle all the downloads at once so if I wanted to play a game I wouldn't saturate my connection with downloads, and it would allow my game to run better, it also allowed me to just drop in his list of downloads and let it do it's magic, I didn't have to worry about anything.
I think it's really nice for the fact that you can just drop in a list of things you want to download, say you are downloading ISOs for linux or updates for MS or something, and they are big downloads, you want to download 4 of them or more, etc. If you do it in FF or IE, you have to leave the browser open while the downloads run, and if your browser crashes, typically you have to restart again, another good thing about a download manager, you don't have to worry about it crashing while using the internet.
It's really more/less a niche thing. It depends on what you download, where from, when, and how you are doing it. I haven't used a download manager in a long time since I've helped him, and there are a few times that I could have, it would've been easier, but typically I don't need the features.
Hope this helps in your quest for information.
-Gizmokid2005
I find my internet quite slow, though it's cable broadband (I burn a lot of Linux LiveCDs ;)). DownTheMall! anecdotally downloads about 4 times faster, and can download all the links on a page, which my mom finds useful for her internet course (all the lectures).
(On a side note, has anyone realized that Down Them All can easily be mistaken as Down The Mall, as in "go to the mall and buy the install disc instead of downloading stuff"? :P)
Insert original signature here with Greasemonkey Script.
you download torrents, just like the rest of us
or... down the mall (of downloads/stores)
;>jamvaru
I find torrents slow and intrusive }:).
And I don't have any money to buy CDs with (I listen to Youtube 8)).
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Torrents are only slow on public trackers and I don't see how they can be intrusive. Anyway, I don't see what it has to do with the topic (#4 in the OP seems irrelevant).
Vintage!
#4 was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but the statement is valid. If you're doing something illegal then the tools you use to do it are irrelevant because you shouldn't be doing something illegal in the first place. If you're not old enough to drive then the type of car you drive is irrelevant. Step out of the car please sir.
I'm working on it right now to add radio. Turns out you have to restart for new settings to take effect.
The website wouldn't connect, probably blocked by school.
Trying open network stream, custom:
cool, got one: http://www.bornagainradio.com/stream/bar64.asx
turns out you just put the link in the textbox.
Thanks PA... and VlC
mucho bueno
;>jamvaru
I first thought it was called Down the Mall, like download everything available. I'd never admit that in public, though.
I am not my signature.
REstart the download if my connection goes crap. Pause it and restart it later.
I hate that firefox uses a .part file. It's fine for some things, but bigger things I like using the wget.
Doesn't make one more thing for firefox to handle.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
I'm still on ssslllooowww dial up. Like Digitxp, I like to play around with linux live cds. Right now in my Firefox/downthemall I have all of my PortableApps updates and in WinWGet I have 2 different versions of Puppy linux downloading as well as a knoppix cd.
Anyone know of a good cross-browser USB bookmark manager? I don't want to keep doing imports/exports as I test browsers.
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well, no.
Maybe this one, but I don't think that's what you're looking for. Their was something called LinkColletor Portable that you could use. Test\Promote or otherwise help the developer and he'd give you a free key.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
I've been playing with AHK for a while now, maybe I'll try to write it...
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That'd be really neat.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
I still need to finish a couple of other things:
-AutoMemScan Updating
-A bathroom signout program I thought up of
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I use an online bookmark manager, I gave up using browser bookmarks a long, long time ago. I got fed up with my bookmarks constantly falling out of sync. I use both Spurl and Simpy. Only reason I use two is that I originally started using Spurl because I like it the best but it seems that the service is dead and no longer maintained. I switched to Simpy in anticipation of Spurl dying and that was over a year ago. It still lives, but you never know!
As for all the other points, thanks to everybody for your responses. I certainly never claimed that download managers are a total waste of time and I recognize that there are some instances where they'd be useful (you have my deepest sympathies dial-up users). It seems a lot of you use them to download Linux live-cds, which is fair enough. I'd still argue that torrents work fine for this. I've done it myself, downloading things like Puppy and Ubuntu, without any issues. Still, whatever works I guess.
Again, thanks for the responses.
I was hoping I could use it, but then I realized that it publishes all my bookmarks, which doesn't help my paranoia. I think until I finish my own, I'll use Gmail.
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You have the option to make every single bookmark private if you wish (with both sites). Granted you have to remember to check that private box every time since I don't think this is the default behavior (and I don't know if you can change the default behavior), but the option is there never-the-less.
EDIT: not one to rest on my laurels... (I just had to check) I can confirm that Simpy at least allows you to change the default behavior so that any new bookmarks entered will be marked as private. I can't get on to Spurl to check it (there's the slow painful death I was talking about) but it might have that option too, if/when the website returns.
seems to work as a portable, not sure how much it integrates into the local hos
Web Downloader
http://www.webxpace.net/software/#Downldr
seems to also work, maybe better.
;>jamvaru
I agree I never saw a point to having download managers. Until I discovered FireDownload. I mean this is so much faster then any other download manager "up to 10x faster". And its fast. The only thing that stinks about it is the fact that you can't control where the files are downloaded
and sometimes, the file downloads but it pauses in the end and you have to start over again without the addon for it to work. I tried downthemall (intentionally left lowercase) and wasn't satisfied. So I always thought they was lame.
FireDownload: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10615
'nuff said
(
wxDownloadFast_0.6.0_portable.zip
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dfast
)
;>jamvaru