faster downloading programme free from net?

S

Shindig 79

Registered User
Messages
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This may be a long shot, but someone told me that itis possible to download a programme (for free) that will allow you to download items that are large even if your broadband speed is not great.

Any advice re this vague topic?
 
Not sure what you mean but i've heard of FlashGet. It's called a DownloadAccelerator. I use it, absolutely brilliant!!

Also FreeDownloadManager but that not as good well for me anyway.

Bare in mind that they won't make you connection any faster they just split the file into multiple connections to the server you're downloading from thus, keeping your download speed at your ISP's max constantly.
Hope that's explains a bit more.
 
I think you mean download managers that resume downloads if you have to disconnect. You might be better off going into a web cafe and downloading files there than using a poor conection at home.
 
aircobra19 said:
I think you mean download managers that resume downloads if you have to disconnect. You might be better off going into a web cafe and downloading files there than using a poor conection at home.
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IE does not resume downloads well sometimes it does. If you are downloading a file with IEx and it crashes, the temp file stays in the temporary internet files folder. So if you download again, it should continue. But if you restart the computer it will erase the temp file.

I do all my DLing with Opera that downloads to a proper folder which you designate, so it can resume. But flashget is really good.

Anyway, downloading from an internet cafe may be even worse as the firewalls are not accessible by you, so the firewalls may slow down a connection, because you cannot forward ports. Would it not?
 
I just meant if you need something big they'll generally do it for you. At least the ones I used a few years back would do this for you.
 
I've seen plenty of software which claims to improve download speeds by changing your TCP/IP settings for maximium efficiency. Does this sound like the type of thing they were suggesting?

I've never heard a very positive report on any (then again, never really looked into it) but would assume if they could do half what they claim then there would be huge backing from the IT community suggesting the use of them.

Personally, never believed any of the claims and would view them as potential malware/spyware etc. and avoid.

(If anyone has positive feedback on such software/tools I am open to correction, I've just never spotted anyone comment favourably on it so far.)

Download managers, as suggested above, are very handy when using slow/poor/sporadic connections. I don't believe they actually improve the download speed - well, reduce the download time, but they do at least allow for multiple sessions to download the complete file. Not much experience of them though (some may actually help improve speeds, FlashGet above does seem to from the comments posted) so can't personally suggest one.
 
Doesn't BitTorrent and the like increase the effective throughput by downloading bits from different places simultaneously? Obviously the bottleneck will always be the narrowest point of the broadband "pipe" between you and the source of the data (and assuming that on the fly end to end compression is not used to squeeze even more performance out of things)? There is lots of snake oil in this context but there are also some things that do work (e.g. TCP/IP configuration setting tuners that set stuff like MTU and window sizes etc. to something that matches your setup better than the defaults etc.)
 
Download Accelerators only work when the bottleneck is the server and not your broadband connection....

Say the site give 50k per stream , when you down in IE you get 50k per second no matter how quick you broadband is..... but the download accelerator will open 5 streams and give you 250k per second .... of course if you connection is only 50k it won't help...
 

No, they just make a better connection and easier managing of downloads.
In some ways they wouls lower the download time by connection drops & retries being eliminated by the multiple streams.


But in the end Shindig 79, the only way to improve speed is to pay more money for a faster BB package. They are out there if you just look. And may save alot of aggrivation especially if the file is important, for inst. to do with work, college etc..
 
Obviously you need to be diligent when installing 'free' software of this nature.
Spyware and adware and like are usually bundled with these programs.

While not a major threat, you just need to understand that software of this type are very rarely 'free' in this sense. Someone other than you is benefitting
from these programs
 
sinbadsailor said:
Obviously you need to be diligent when installing 'free' software of this nature.
Spyware and adware and like are usually bundled with these programs.
Click to expand...
I agree with this.
While not a major threat
Click to expand...
But not this (it may or may not be a major threat to install software that cannot be vouched for)...
you just need to understand that software of this type are very rarely 'free' in this sense. Someone other than you is benefitting
from these programs
Click to expand...
... and I totally disagree with this. There are lots of free software packages out there that are truly free (in terms of price and/or source code being available), which are totally legitimate and represent no risk (e.g. malware etc.) and some of which are even better than commercial alternatives.

Obviously people need to exercise due caution when selecting software for download and installation though.
 
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