FlashGet Editor's Review

FlashGet is a powerful download manager that will solve two of the most annoying problems concerning Internet downloads: the speed and the management (finding mirrors, multithread downloading, pause/resume, etc.). 

This is one of my favorite download manager and I like it even more since version 1.72. Since that version it has become free with no add supported like it was before. 

It's engine has the support for up to 10 downloading threads. If the download link is active all the time, you will be always able to resume it. Another thing that I like is the support for infinite retrying if the download source or the ISP has some issues with the connectivity. 

The program can be set up very easily. In the 'Default download properties' you can set up the number of maximum download threads, the default download location, the download category and one of the download modes: manual, immediately or scheduled. 

The number of active downloads can be modified from the default 3, up to 8 active downloads. This is enough for most of the download activities since 8 active downloads with 10 download threads means 80 download threads globally. I say this is enough, because since Windows XP with Service Pack 2, the number of outgoing TCP connections is limited by the TCP/IP stack to maximum 10, from the number of 65535 which was the number of outgoing connections allowed in the previous versions of Windows. 

There are a lot of protocols that this manager can use: HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS, MMST, RTSP. You can set options for everyone very easily in the 'Options' area. 

The proxy server support for this download manager is very good. It has support for HTTP, SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 5 proxies. You can set up a profile for every type of proxy server and, when downloading, you may choose which profile should be used or if the download should be done with direct connection to the hosting server. 

The shell integration is very good with Internet Explorer. It is adding in Internet Explorer's contextual menu the options: 'Download using FlashGet' and 'Download all with FlashGet'. When using the 'download all' option, FlashGet is grabbing all the downloadable items from that web page and it's giving you the opportunity to choose which one should be downloaded. It can be integrated with Firefox too by using the FlashGot extension. 

Pluses: It is free for all users, it is a powerful download tool, it has very good shell integration with the supported browsers. It has the support for a lot of network protocols, it has a very good proxy servers support, it has a great download management. It has the support for lots of operating systems, it has never corrupted any of my downloads and the application is very stable. BitTorrent download client included. 

Drawbacks / flaws: it is a little slow when adding large files to the download queue when it is allocating hard drive space (300 MB or above) or when it is removing such large files, it doesn't support md5 hash file check. 

In conclusion: a great download tool that can become your default download manager from now on. It can do amazing things for a free application. 

version reviewed: 2