What is download manager?: A download manager is a computer program designed to download files from the Internet, unlike a web browser, which is mainly intended to browse webpages on the World Wide Web (with file downloading being of secondary importance).

There are several things that some web browsers are not very good at. That’s where the download managers enter the equation:

• Pausing the downloading of large files.
• Resuming broken or paused downloads (especially for very large files).
• Downloading files on poor connections.
• Downloading several files from a site automatically according to simple rules (file types, updated files, etc. – see also Offline Browser).
• Automatic recursive downloads (mirroring).
• Scheduled downloads (including, automatic hang-up and shutdown).
• Searching for mirror sites, and the handling of different connections to download the same file more quickly (Segmented downloading).

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Download_manager for a complete info about download managers.

I fed up using freeware download accelerator tools, all have annoying ads and worse, it installs adware so I find ads coming without any ability to control it. It may even have spyware, I know some free tool vendors who get money by writing freeware that includes apyware and adware. To get rid of these problems, I researched for a good Open Source tool and found TrueDownload.

Here is a summary of its features:
– Simple, Reliable, No banner or advertisement.
– No adware or spyware.
– Can be used for HTTP or FTP Internet download.
– Compatible with all webservers.
– Multi Langugage supported.
– Integrated in Internet Explorer, Mozilla, FireFox and their derivatives.
– Open Source.

If you are interested, you can look at the source code to learn how it works, you can even contribute to the source code. These are a little benefit from the huge benefits of Open Source. The tool is fast and reliable, what is a surprise for me is, it is written in Visual Basic. Look at more info and download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/downloadplus/

If you need to make your own selection, Wikipedia has info that will help you. There exist a list of many download managers article and a comparison of most download managers.