this post was submitted on 07 May 2024

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is there a download manager for Linux that just works? (libreddit.oxymagnesium.com)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Something as simple and as convenient to use as internet download manager

If you have ever used IDM before then you know what I mean, I'm yet to find an alternative that's on par with its ease of use and convenience

Here are my requirements:

I don't have to copy-paste any links or right click on any links (just like IDM)
it works on all sites, well except for mega.nz (just like IDM)
it can scan the website and show me a download button on top of the media if it detects media like a YouTube video or an audio file playing, etc... (just like IDM)
It works perfectly with Firefox (just like IDM)
it doesn't have to keep running in the background, starting a direct download link should initiate it and show me a pop download dialog/window (just like IDM)

I have tried:

Persepolis: it has failed me miserably, the download fails 99% of the time (like from GitHub) so I ended up disabling the browser extension because it was getting in my way.
Motrix: I have tried it on Windows with Firefox, but it doesn't auto-detect the downloads and I have to copy and paste the download links and in some cases this is very difficult as many websites don't show the direct download link to the user.
Varia: tried it quickly yesterday, and it failed to auto capture the download link and Firefox built in download manager started instead.
FDM: I have tried to download it off the package manager (a flatpak from Linux mint software manager) but it failed to install for some reason and now the download option doesn't load at all! But I have used FDM on Windows before, and it is not as good as IDM.

I just downloaded KGet, and it doesn't seem to be what I'm looking for, but we will see.

Some notes:

youtube-dl: I never used it before but from what I know about it, I'm pretty sure it doesn't fit my criteria
I'm using 1DM+ on my android phone, and it is so damn good, it's almost perfect, it is the golden standard for download managers on android, this app is another example of "it just works".

I think I'm losing hope, and I'm going to see if IDM can run perfectly using WINE

final update

Tested JDownloader2 with the Download with JDownloader Firefox extension vs FDM and the winner is FDM because it just worked out of the box no configuration was needed beyond just installing the browser extension, and it did a better job at meeting my requirements except for the 3rd one, but thankfully I found this great extension so it's alright

ah I almost forgot, yes I tested DownThemAll, and it didn't automatically capture downloads, so this was an instant no

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I have nothing to contribute, but I'm extremely curious as to why someone would need a "download manager"? What's the use case?

I seem to recall most downloader programs just being malware like Orbit downloader etc.

[–] thequantumcog 17 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I mostly use a download manager for parallel downloading a file. (downloading multiple parts of a single file at the same time).

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I might be dumb but I still don’t understand the use of such a download manager.

I mean I guess I have an integrated download manager in Firefox and it’s sufficient for my user case.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 7 months ago (3 children)

You’re not dumb you just haven’t needed that use case before.

Here’s an example of the last time JDownloader saved me. There was a website where people were posting archives of old skateboard videos. There were hundreds of links across dozens of pages in a forum. All links to sites like mega.

I was able to view all pages in one document and extracted all of the hundreds of links and put them in JDownloader. Over the course of the next several weeks JDownloader was able to manage those downloads without clogging my bandwidth. If a download failed it would notify me and I could retry it.

Can you imagine trying to do that in Firefox?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

Thanks for the explanation 👍

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Fair enough! That's so good you managed to get all that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Sounds like nzb with extra steps.

[–] optissima 16 points 7 months ago

Aria2 in the terminal has this feature:

aria2c -X 16 [URL]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

A long time ago I used a CLI download manager that could download from different mirrors at the same time.

I think it was a tool called axel and it worked very well.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

When I used to use one it was due to sites limiting downloads to 200kb/s or similar. 32 parallel requests got that up to 6.4MB/s

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Neat! I haven't had to use download sites in ages so TIL you could bypass it like this. I thought all that stuff died with Rapidshare and letitbit etc.