Here at Softonic we download and test up to 30 programs a day, so having a download manager on our PCs definitely makes our life easier. Flashget is considered by many to be the best download manager out there, but does it really deserve this reputation? We gave it a test drive to uncover the features that make it such a widely-coveted application.

Flashget takes charge of your downloads, automating the whole process from start to finish. Among the essential features of a download manager is batch downloading of multiple files, well handled by the program. Flashget also lets you schedule downloads to start at particular times. This is good when you have a long list of files waiting to be downloaded but you want to avoid sucking up bandwidth. You can schedule them to download one after the other, or at times when you will not be using your PC. What makes Flashget a particularly valuable tool is the speed of its downloads. You can cut up a file into various parts to download it faster and can optimize the speed according to your connection. When tested out, Flashget definitely revealed higher performances than the in-browser download managers included in Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Modem users will appreciate the auto-connect/disconnect function but the majority of users, who are on broadband, can ignore this feature. Our favourite function was the ability to explore a website for all possible downloads, an easy way to catch all the files in a site in one go. However, avoid using this tool for a website like Softonic, otherwise you’ll end up with hundreds or even thousands of random programs queued up.

Flashget is compatible with Internet Explorer and Netscape (meaning it also works with Firefox and Opera) but a little browsing on the developer’s website and you will find out that it also offers plug-ins for Opera and Firefox.

Flashget allows you to set up rules for your downloads, such as organizing them according to name or URL; a promising feature which actually turned out to be pretty disappointing. Where we expected a whole range of filters to select and organize downloads according to categories like size, download speed or even comments, we only found two sets of rules, seriously limiting this feature’s possibilities.

So what is our verdict? Flashget has enough features to make it a solid option for any download addict or beginner alike. What’s more, Flashget is fast. Actually, it’s really fast: the Formula 1 of download managers. If you download files often, you won’t be disappointed.

Download FlashGet 1.9.6.1073 in Softonic

If you usually come across downloads from free hosting sites you'll probably have noticed that they're all quite unfriendly and difficult to use: lots of ads, waiting times, extra clicks, passwords and some other elements make downloading from free hosting services a real pain.

Luckily enough you can now use Universal Share Downloader. This manager handles the whole downloading process in a very convenient way, saving you all the hard work. Just enter the appropriate link for the file you want to download an this application will take care of everything.

Universal Share Downloader is configured to work with more than a hundred free hosting services, including the most popular ones like RapidShare, MegaUpload or YouSendIt. It can also be integrated into Firefox (with the FlashGot extension) and Internet Explorer, plus monitor the Windows Clipboard for copied download links.

Some other interesting features are compatibility with proxy servers, the ability to schedule tasks, support for remote control and automatic program updates.

Download Universal Share Downloader 1.3.4.4 in Softonic

Do you usually download from free file sharing sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload and the likes? If so, you'll love jDownloader.

This Java-based tool makes the whole file downloading process much easier for those sites, saving you the pain of going through endless pop-up windows, waiting times and download links cunningly hidden among dozens of Google AdSense boxes.

jDownloader works best with multiple downloads, as it enables you to create a list of files and then download them all at the same time. Other interesting options include the possibility to limit bandwidth usage and support for premium user accounts. Unlike other download managers though, jDownloader doesn't have support for resuming downloads.

That said, the only thing that really needs to be improved is its user interface. I don't know if it's just the design, or the fact that the program runs on Java, but the truth is that jDownloader is confusing and sometimes counterintuitive.

If you take the time to learn how to use it, jDownloader will prove to be a handy companion for download junkies.

Download jDownloader 0.2.888 in Softonic

Download managers are one of the most important component of any PC users' tool kit since so many e-mails contains attachments that need to be downloaded on a daily basis.

That's not forgetting files and music and anything else that your hard drive accumulates during the day as you click away. Most people have a browser integrated download manager but sometimes, its nice to have a separate application to do the job in case your browser crashes and your downloads disappear with it.

Orbit Downloader is a fast, lightweight and easy-to-use free download manager which is usually based on P2P and multi-source downloading technology. This means that downloading with Orbit Downloader is usually super fast. Orbit Downloader supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS and RTSP protocols although its developers claim that it can increase speeds by up to 500% are a bit far fetched. However, you may experience increases in speed of up to two or even three times as much using Orbit Downloader depending on the file and host.

What's also impressive is that Orbit Downloader is super lightweight occupying a very minuscule amount of RAM which is important if you've got multiple downloads running at once. Orbit Downloader has also got a handy Flash capture tool which allows you to save Flash video files from YouTube and DailyMotion etc without the need to use a separate video downloader.

Fast, easy to use and very lightweight, Orbit Downloader is a competitive alternative to any browser-integrated download manager.

Download Orbit Downloader 2.7.6 in Softonic

Boasting the ability to improve the speed of your downloads by an incredible 300 percent, Download Accelerator Plus features multi-server connections to let you squeeze the best possible performance from your Net connection.

The beauty of the software lies in its simplicity, you just choose the file you want to download, tell the program where you want it to be filed away then forget about as DAP does all the donkey work for you. What’s more, if you get booted offline for any reason the software will automatically resume the download from the place it had already reached.

DAP even searches for “mirror sites” for you and this serves to make downloading a pretty painless process, with the app sucking up files fairly quickly. DAP is a veritable feature-fest making the whole process much easier by including functions like automatic hang-up on completion of a download, download scheduling, and dial-up configuration – a handy tool for anyone not yet blessed with broadband.

The only slight niggle for some people may be the fact that it is nigh-on impossible to turn the thing off, unlike most of its peers, where you can choose to manually download something fairly easily. Having said this, because the program is so easy to use and integrates beautifully with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera browsers, there really is little reason why you wouldn’t want this great utility keeping watch of your downloads all the time.

Download Download Accelerator Plus 8.7 in Softonic

RapGet (full name RAPidshareGET) is a downloader with code recognition for such share servers as rapidshare.de, megaupload.com, slil.ru and others.

The program recognizes codes used by these servers and can directly obtain a connection with each to get hold of your favourite files. In addition, RapGet can work with multiple simultaneous downloads and offers information on each one of the files. It also has support for more than 40 languages.

Download RapGet 1.41 in Softonic

High speed Internet connections are quite common now but that doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes need some help when it comes to downloading game demos, videos, MP3 collections and other big files. So, even if you’re enjoying the fastest router in the neighborhood, take a look at Internet Download Manager, because it really has a lot to offer.

This excellent app will take care of all your downloads from the moment you install it on your PC. You can add new download tasks from the program’s interface but the usual thing is to let it capture the links. This means that every time you click on a certain file type (which can be specified through configuration options), IDM will handle the download for itself rather than letting the browser do the job. It’s a really handy option because everything is automatic: no changing from one app to another, no copying and pasting links, just no hassle at all. Also, it works with all major web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera.

Once IDM captures the link, you can either start to download the file right away or add it to a download list for later, which can be a good alternative if you need all of your bandwidth for the moment and plan to leave the computer on during the night. Downloads can be classified into custom categories right before starting them and can also be resumed if the connection is lost or broken for some reason.

As regards download speeds, Internet Download Manager does meet expectations, although it all depends on your Internet access. That is, don’t expect to download at the speed of light if you’re still using one of those old-fashioned 56K modems. Anyhow, IDM achieves quite satisfying download rates as a result of establishing multiple thread connections to servers. Also, it displays a small window with some interesting information about the download process: transfer rate, data downloaded so far, time left and a neat progress bar for each thread.

The program’s configuration menu displays a wide range of functions and tools devoted to handling your downloads, such as checking files for viruses directly from IDM with your own antivirus system or limiting the amount of bandwidth used by the program. There’s also support for server authentication and proxy, FTP and HTTPS servers.

The fact of the matter is, we couldn’t really find anything wrong with Internet Download Manager. It does its job and does it pretty well, so even if your Internet connection speed is far beyond the usual limits, you should definitely give it a try.

Download Internet Download Manager 5.14.5 in Softonic

Neither the download managers that come bundled with Firefox or IE are particularly impressive so it's a good idea to add a third party downloader or plugin.

Fresh Download claims it can "turbo charge" downloads to make them download in less than half the time they would normally. It works with both FTP and HTTP protocols and gives you a whole range of control over how downloads are completed. Included is a pause and resume feature which is very useful for broken downloads or those downloads that suddenly and annoyingly time out. The program achieves such high speeds due to it's ability to connect to multiple connections and it works across most major browsers. if you don't want to carry out downloads immediately, you can also schedule them for a later date and it can even download links that you've copied to your clipboard or dragged into the main interface from your desktop. If you're downloading zip files, it can also decompress them automatically with it's own Zip extractor although note that it's not particularly powerful or fast - you'd be better using WinZip or WinRAR.

Although you won't notice huge download speeds, you will notice an improvement and besides, this is a much easier way to manage downloads.

Download Fresh Download 8.06 in Softonic

If you're a massive user of both Rapidshare and Megaupload it's a pain to use two separate administrators to manage your upload and downloads.

In the case of Rapidshare the most annoying thing is that you have to wait before you can click on a file to download it. FreeRapid Downloader offers a more holistic way to manage your downloads and uploads in one convenient application. It lets you download files hosted on Megaupload, Rapidshare, Netload or FileFactory without needing to click a single thing.

FreeRapid Downloader basically works by allowing you to add several links at the same time until they're queued up waiting to go. It can even monitor your clipboard for links that are cut to it and automatically add them to your queue. While this definitely makes managing your downloads easier, it still only downloads files one by one meaning if you've got several files from several file sharing sites, it can be painfully slow.

FreeRapìd Downloader will make your file sharing site downloads easier to manage although not speed them up in any significant way.

Download FreeRapid Downloader 0.61 in Softonic

With MakeTorrent you will be able to create your own files to share in BitTorrent. The program boasts the following features:

• Complete Win32 re-write
• Built-in Torrent Editor/Viewer
• Automatic update of trackers, as well as personal tracker supoport
• 2 modes: Simple and Classic
• Support for backup/multi trackers

Download MakeTorrent 2.1 in Softonic

Youtube Batch Downloader is designed for all those video junkies that prefer downloading Youtube videos to watching them online. There are other tools to download videos from the popular website, that's true: but this one is special for a few reasons.

First, it enables you to download not only single videos, but also multiple videos at the same time. You can actually download all the videos grouped under the same author, channel or group with a single click.

Second, the program can save videos in a variety of formats, namely AVI, WMV, MOV, MP4 and special formats for iPod and Zune. No conversion process, no waiting time. The video is downloaded, converted and saved, all in one!

Finally, you can join these downloaded videos into one single file, so that they're easier to watch, especially if they are similar in topic.

The only downside to Youtube Batch Downloader is that you'll probably need to check the documentation if you want to learn how to use, because it's not as easy as it seems. In any case, documentation is a Youtube video itself, so it's not that hard.

A Youtube video downloading tool that also converts formats and join several clips in one.

Download YouTube Batch Downloader 1.0 in Softonic

Free Download Manager (FDM) is a full-featured download accelerator and manager. Using this software you can easily download a list of files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. With FDM the downloading process will be as easy as never before!

FDM is a light-weight, powerful and easy-to-use application. Also this software product is well-known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface. It can function as a site manager, accelerator, site explorer and scheduler.

Free Download Manager can resume broken downloads. So you needn't start the downloading process from the very beginning after casual interruption. You can resume unfinished download from the moment when it was interrupted. Also this program warns you if resuming isn't supported by the servers. It allows you to make a decision about the downloading. So with FDM you save your time and money.

Download Free Download Manager 2.5.758 in Softonic

Remember the days of dial-up connections, when to save money, you'd try and save and download as many pages as possible for reading later? With the advent of broadband, those days are thankfully gone for most people. But there are occasions when you might want to save a whole website for offline reading or to do a backup. If that's your case, then you could do a lot worse than try WinHTTrack Website Copier.

The good news is that this program is open source and totally free to use. The designer has done his level best to ensure that it's easy to use - which it is - but if you explore the program in more depth, you'll find that WinHTTrack is loaded with features galore that enable you to specify all sorts of parameters.

There are four main menu drop downs you'll need to use - 'File', 'Preferences', 'Mirror' and 'Set'. All the most common functions are performed via the time-honoured 'File' drop-down menu at the top - from here you can select to download websites and pages by entering the URL. In the preferences box, you can select exactly which format you'd like to download it such as simply HTML which only saves the coding or MHTML (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) which saves the page as a whole in one file. The Mirror menu allows you to select whether you'd like to be able to pause the transfer whilst downloading although it only becomes an option when you start the operation.

If you don't want to use the menus, an excellent wizard takes you through the process. With this, you merely have to give the project a name and specify a path to save it to. The program does the rest by using the most common settings for downloading sites. Don't worry if your connection is interrupted either, as the program can resume broken downloads at any stage.

One really useful option is in the 'Set' menu which allows you to bypass http and download directly via FTP. This is a lot quicker, although you'll need to have a little bit of FTP knowledge to configure it correctly. This option also allows you to omit certain pages from a site, a feature which, unless you are performing a backup, you'll almost certainly use. You can also set how 'deep' you want the website to be saved. For instance, do you want it to save everything that's linked to the site too or just the site itself? If you set it to 'everything' you might end up waiting a very long time as WinHTTrack Website Copier will download absolutely everything the site is linked to from every page! You can also set a 'timeout' limit for dead links so that you're not waiting all day for it to download.

One final useful option is to enable the PC to shutdown once a site has been downloaded. Some huge sites will take hours to download in which case, you can leave it running overnight but not worry about leaving your PC on.

For downloading whole websites, WinHTTrack Website Copier is a fantastic tool. The main downside we found was the program's responsiveness. Once a download is started, it seems very hard to stop, even if you ask it to cancel the operation. The program can run quickly out of control downloading sites and you end up having to use the Windows task manager to terminate it. If only this has existed 10 years ago!

Download WinHTTrack Website Copier 3.42 in Softonic

There are so many TV torrents now available that it's hard to keep track of your favourite ones especially long running series.

The problem I find is that all too often, you wait ages for a torrent to appear and then the minute your back is turned and you've lost interest, someone posts the exact torrent you were waiting for. This torrent tracker provides the perfect solution if you're a TV torrent downloader and it supports all mainstream shows such as 24, Lost, Topgear, Desperate Housewives, the Simpsons, South Park, Grey's Anatomy, Battlestar Galactica, etc and more. Adding your own shows is very easy courtesy of a simple wizard and you'll find that you download less fake torrents because it can detect which torrents are genuine and which are not. By defining keywords, you can instruct the program which programs to ignore or keywords to filter out. In addition, the program utilises "break schedulers" which optimise torrents to ensure that you're getting the best out of your bandwidth. Saving torrents is easy as you it takes them directly to your hard drive asking you which torrent client you'd like to download it with. The only problem is that it doesn't seem to distinguish between languages when downloading torrents so if you don't want to watch Battlestar Gallactica in German, then double check the torrents as they are downloading.

A very useful torrent tracker which any TV series fan will find saves them time, effort and fake torrents.

Download ted 0.92 in Softonic

Teleport Pro is a fully automated, multithreaded, file-retrieving Web spider. The program gives you the ability to completely download a Web site, browse it offline, create a mirror of the site, search the site for files of a certain type, and then download the list of files and their URLs.

This new release has automatic proxy configuration, an Add to Favorites feature, an improved Copy URL feature, and the ability to copy multiple URLs. It has also improved the relinking system, which is now faster at managing tightly linked sites (100 links per page). The program also has improved the disk-free space calculation and now works around the Windows 95 OSR2 bug.

Program highlights:

• Download all or part of a website to your computer, enabling you to browse the site directly from your hard disk at greater speeds than if you were to browse the site online
• Create an exact duplicate, or 'mirror' of a website, complete with subdirectory structure and all required files
• Search a website for files of a certain type and size
• Download a list of files at known addresses
• Explore every website linked from a central website
• Search a website for keywords
• Make a list of all pages and files on a website

Download Teleport Pro 1.54 in Softonic

Gigaget is the next generation download manager which utilizes cutting-edge Net Grid technology that improves your download speed by 7-10 times.

Besides, Gigaget fundamentally reduces the operational cost of content providers, while dramatically improving downloading effectiveness and reach. Net Grid Technology taps the unused resources of networked PCs and servers, allowing content providers to deliver large files with faster speed and at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.

Download GigaGet 1.0.0.23 in Softonic

How many times have you tried to save streaming media locally but realised you don't have the appropriate tool? Net Transport (NetXfer) can do just that for you. Net Transport downloads MMS and RTSP streaming in multiple threads with perfect video & audio quality.

There are some other great features, like "Site Manager" which allows you to keep the active connection with the remote servers. In addition, the support for both SSL and SSH is hardly found in other upload/download tools.

Main Features:

• Simple but powerful "File Manager" to categorize and manage downloaded files
• Simple multi-user management
• Inbuilt "Site Explorer" lists the directory structure of the remote server
• FTP reuse mechanism uses one connection to get different files from the same site
• Assign every working thread a different proxy to break certain site restrictions
• Proxies with NTLM authentication can penetrate local firewall, like Microsoft ISA 2000
• Adjust the bandwidth usage of Net Transport
• Monitor browser click
• Can automatically shutdown the system or hang up the modem
• NTLM authentication is supported for both MMS and RTSP
• Use multi-threads for both MMS and RTSP to significantly reduce the time of downloads
• Automatically parse streaming script such as .asx, .smi to acquire real URLs
• Support SSH encryption for both HTTP and FTP
• Flexible "Scheduler Manager"

Download Net Transport (NetXfer) 2.64.423 in Softonic

Save reference material, online books, e-zines, news articles and other Web content to your hard drive. Share or view them later, without an Internet connection. WebZIP offers a fast and easy way to download, store and view Web pages or entire Web sites offline. It lets you download complete Web sites, or choose settings for depth of retrieval, file-types, location, or advanced URL filters, to fine tune your Web captures and save only the Web content you want.

Sites are stored on your local hard drive in their native HTML format, with the original file names and directory structure maintained to provide an exact mirror of the Web site. Using the new FAR add-in tool for WebZIP, you can compile your downloaded content to HTML-Help. With just a few clicks, you get a single compressed HTML-Help file, complete with: Table of Contents, Index, and Full-Text Search capabilities of your captured Web site. WebZIP also gives you the option of archiving your captured Webs to ZIP files. WebZIP is a great tool for saving permanent copies of Web material for distribution, reference and offline reuse.

Download WebZIP 7.0.2.1028 in Softonic

A friend of mine who is a Mac user is always complaining about not being able to download full photo albums from Picasa. Well, I'm glad to tell her I just found the solution.

Picasa Webalbums Assistant is a simple Java tool developed by a computer student who also had the same problem as my friend: if you use a Mac and therefore don't have Picasa, downloading photo albums one picture at a time is a real pain. Of course, that doesn't mean this app is only intended for Mac users. If you use Windows but don't like Picasa you can also take advantage of this app. You'll be able to download material both from public and private albums and select the right photos thanks to its convenient thumbnail preview.

Having been created in Java, the program is not certainly very nice or user-friendly. However you can tell the author has made a great effort to make it as easy to use as possible.

While Picasa Webalbums Assistant doesn't have the most attractive interface in the world, it's the perfect tool to download Picasa photo albums without Picasa.

Download Picasa Webalbums Assistant 0.3 in Softonic

I'm sure we've all come across hundreds of awesome high quality photo collections or impressive image galleries online. The trouble is, if you want to transfer all of these beautiful shots onto your hard drive, it takes forever, as you need to save each one seperately. Don't lose too much sleep over this though, because you can always use Bulk Image Downloader to do this task for you.

The app lets you schedule downloads of entire online image collections through a dead simple interface. Or, you can even choose to dispense with this altogether by taking advantage of the built-in IE and Firefox integration to grab multiple pictures even quicker. Although there are no options for editing the resulting images or categorising them into galleries of your own, the program does contain settings for things like blocking pop-up windows, restarting incomplete tasks and repairing broken downloads.

Download Bulk Image Downloader 1.36 in Softonic