Download Managers...do they work?

By work, I mean do they actually speed up downloads appreciably? Do most people use some sort of manager with Chrome or Firefox or just the built-in manager? For the longest time I used Internet Download Manager, than just used the Firefox manager, then finally went to Free Download Manager. I'm thinking of going back to the Firefox one as FDM isn't working too great with Firefox 6 and IDM just got ugly. Flashget and Downthemall are also way too ugly for me..lol. Would I lose any speed out of it?

 

torrents (when available) are usually faster. DLMs can work in the right circumstances.

A lot of download sites are starting to go way out of their way to shut off downloads being run via a download manager. They don't want multiple IP pipes running and sucking all of their bandwidth for one user.

 

From the 3 you mentioned above. IDM has given me the fastest results. I always download @ 100% of my 8 mbps from good sites which equates to 1 - 1.2 MB/S max, these are sites like MS, Google, Mozilla, you know, the good sites.

From other sites, which give me 80-100 KB/S IDM managed to increase the speed to 300 - 500 KB/S.

The built in download manager in FF didn't give me great results (DownThemAll) and I hate FDM's interface and it didn't give me anywhere near the speeds of IDM.

I am using IDM v6.07 Build 8 right now

 

I actually just gave all of them a shot.. they were the same. Few insignificant variations here and there but that's more attributed to the connection itself. I'm going to stick with the basic FF manager. Still interested to know what the majority use with Chrome and FF...

 

Internet Download Manager here

 

I'll second this one. Been using it for about a month now and wish I knew about it earlier!

 

Personally I try to go with torrents when available, they can be significantly faster since you're not limited by the upload speed and the load of a mirror server. Standalone download managers have never given me any appreciable download increase, so I go for torrents.

 

Add me down for a third.

Downloading Autodesk installations is so much faster than the integrated browser download manager.

 

Internet Download Manager is the best purchase I have made over the bunch of useless performance enhancers and registry cleaners.

$20 bucks, well worth every buck. I really wish I knew about it before, it's like upgrading your internet connection on the spot, but not paying any extra. It helps you maximise the benefit of every mbps

 

You paid for it?

 

Yes and it's worth every buck believe me

Internet Download Manager: the fastest download accelerator

Why did you think it was free?

 

I guess so

I have the trial version.

 

Right, I had 2 choices, I tried both Free Download Manager and Internet Download Manager, the latter was faster, better interface, minimal to no options requirement.

With FDM I had to disable a few notifications just to get rid of the annoying on screen download progress notifications (not that this is a big deal but just noting), but overall, IDM provided my with 100% download speed of my internet connection.

one time fee of $20 isn't gonna break the bank, and it was certainly worth it.

 

For me its all about jDownloader ( http://jdownloader.org/).

When coupled with FlashGot (Firefox) or jDownloader extension (chrome) it works flawlessly and with a lot of speed. As an added benefit, it also handles torrents and hosting sites (rapidshare, megaupload, fileserve etc) very well!