I have often felt that web browsers, and download managers never offer maximum speeds for downloads. Sometimes they even drop by 50% below for no apparent reason, and as a result the downloads take a long time to complete. The only download manager, which brushes aside this issue, is IDM. Internet Download Manager with its dynamic file segmentation technology, can utilize the maximum speed of your internet connection.
We tested it using a free downloader program, and a lowly 2mbps connection where the download speeds are usually well below 275 KB/s.
But IDM's download speed acceleration outperforms this, and we constantly saw the speeds reaching the 300 KB/s mark, and sometimes much faster than it. This works well, even with mobile network connections, which you use as WiFi hotspots.
Interface and key features:
IDM's interface is simplistic, and easy to use. You can use the toolbar to add new downloads via a URL, resume or stop a download, stop all downloads at once, delete a download, delete all completed downloads in a single click. The options button lets you alter the program's settings. This includes enabling/disabling the program from running at startup, enable/disable browser monitoring and other options. You can enable a setting which lets IDM monitor the clipboard for URLs, and start the download immediately.
Some websites do not support download managers, so you will need to use your browser to download files from them. You can use a hotkey by holding and clicking on the link, to prevent IDM from starting the download (by default it is the Alt key). Alternatively, you can add websites to the "File Types" tab to prevent IDN from downloading files from the servers. You can setup IDM to start downloading various file formats, from the same tab. This will silently download the file in the background, the moment IDM pop-up window appears, and even before when you select the download location, and hit the "Start Download" button.
IDM's options lets you select the type of internet connection, set up a proxy, set your default download location and more. When starting a download, you will see that IDM neatly categorizes files into appropriate sections, depending on the file format. You can change this to download files in one unified folder.
Browser Integration:
IDM supports all popular web browsers including Internet Explorer 11, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Edge and more.
IDM will install a browser add-on or extension if available for better integration.
Resume Downloads:
One of the most frustrating issues when downloading large files, is when the download pauses for a split second. This is enough to break the download process completely just because the server does not support resuming downloads. If you suffer from power cuts, or network outages, you will be aware that download resume is a real problem. Most web browsers and download managers cannot bypass this issue. But it is not a problem with IDM, because the software supports resuming downloads, even when the server rejects it. In such cases, IDM will prompt you to go to the download page of the file, and click on the download button again, but instead of starting a fresh download, IDM will resume it where the download was left off.
Note: This does not work with some file sharing services, which employ their own algorithm to prevent resuming of broken downloads.
Video Downloader:
A huge advantage in using IDM, is that you don't need a separate video downloader for services like Google Video, YouTube, MySpace etc. Most free video downloaders come with adware or toolbars, but you have no such issues with IDM. Just head to a video's page, for exapmle, a YouTube video, and you will see a button which says Download this video. Hit it to download the video.
Want to download the video in a higher resolution? Simply select the preferred resolution in the video's page, and then click on the download video button, and IDM will download it for you.
All these features make IDM an invaluable companion to your browser, and we have 5 licenses of Internet Download Manager to giveaway to our readers, thanks to Dave from Tonec. Each of these licenses are valid for 1 year. Hit the widget below to participate in the contest contest.
Internet Download Manager Full version license Giveaway