Overview

Free Download Manager's 3.0 is an open source, user-friendly, feature-rich download manager and accelerator. The software is able to accelerate download speeds by compartmentalizing files into small pieces, and then downloading all the fragments simultaneously. By providing a centralized interface through which downloads can be organized, managed, and queued, Free Download Manager 3.0 effectively expedites and simplifies the process of downloading data from the Internet, and makes web browsing significantly more enjoyable.

Installation

The installation process is simple and straightforward, however you may want to uncheck the checkbox that asks whether you want to install Software Informer if you don't need this additional soft. With a file size of 6.53 MB, Free Download Manager is surprisingly compact, and is compatible with all versions of Windows.

Interface

The user interface is somewhat self explanatory, with well illustrated buttons lining the top that allow you to easily add, start, stop, pause, and resume downloads with a click of the mouse. The main screen is categorized into eight tabs – downloads, flash video downloads, torrents, upload scheduler, site explorer, site manager, and HTML spider. The downloads tab is the central control panel, providing an overview of all active downloads, and letting you track progress and view previews of media as the files are being downloaded.

Pros

• Increases download speeds by up to 600%

• Lets you instantly resume broken downloads so you don't have to re-download the entire file

• Download streaming video from the Internet from sites directly to your computer in .FLV format

• Integrated upload manager facilitates file sharing and is compatible with most browsers and Outlook express.

• Provides support for FTP, HTTP, and BitTorrent protocols, letting you download data from web servers faster than ever

• HTML spider feature lets you download every page on a website with the click of a button

• You can view feedback from other Free Download Manager's users regarding files you're downloading, which helps you keep your computer safe from viruses and fake files

• Lets you organize and schedule downloads

• Supports remote usage

• Offers three modes of operation that lets you control bandwidth and resource allocation – light mode, medium mode, and heavy mode.

Cons

• May be somewhat demanding on system resources when several downloads are running and/or the program is being operated in heavy mode.

• Due to the extensive number of options, a slight learning curve may be in order.

Alternatives

Free Download Manager's 3.0 is definitely not completely unique in its functionality, and there are a number of other popular alternatives available, including Internet Download Manager, Orbit Downloader or DAP. However, many user reviews place Free Download Manager 3.0 ahead of all of the aforementioned competitors because of the advanced control it gives the user.

Conclusion

If you'd like to increase the speed of your downloads, easily download content from any website, or prevent downloads from crashing due to Internet connectivity issues, Free Download Manager's 3.0 would be extremely helpful. Although there are a variety of free download managers available online, none of them can match the features and functionality of this software.