Free program that increases ease of downloading from the internet

[Hannah]

Free Download Manager (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/) is open source software that does the following (as their blurb says):

FDM accelerates downloads by splitting files into sections and then downloading them simultaneously. As a result download speed increases up to 600%, or even more! FDM can also resume broken downloads so you needn`t start downloading from the beginning after casual interruption.

It works really well. If you have a slow connection and have the regular frustration of your downloads not completely downloading, this is a sanity saver!

I see that they now also have free video downloads and upload manager, but I haven't used those yet.

[Kris]

Free Download Manager (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/) is open source software that does the following (as their blurb says):

It works really well. If you have a slow connection and have the regular frustration of your downloads not completely downloading, this is a sanity saver!

I use this program myself, and it is very helpful. However, if you have a slow connection, you will still have slow downloads. The fact that it breaks it up into pieces just means you have two to four smaller slow downloads going at the same time, instead of just one. It isn't really any faster. This isn't the only program to use this "trick."

That said, if you are on dial-up or have an unreliable connection, it *is* helpful in that you can resume the download if there's a problem, rather than having to start from scratch.

[Hannah]

However, if you have a slow connection, you will still have slow downloads. The fact that it breaks it up into pieces just means you have two to four smaller slow downloads going at the same time, instead of just one. It isn't really any faster. This isn't the only program to use this "trick."

Thanks for clarifying this.