Xtreme Download Manager Chrome Addon

[Emmanuelle Thaller]

Thebuilt-in download manager works but it lacks features that full-blown download managers offer. Let's say you download a large file; if the download completes without errors, great, but if you run into any errors (server-side issue, or your internet connection), your browser will simply stop the download with a failed tag next to the filename. There may be no way to resume the download and you've to start it from scratch.

The official page for the program says it can accelerate the download speed by up to 500%. I'm just going to say this here, the only way to increase your internet speed is by getting a better (more expensive) connection and use a wired connection instead of Wi-Fi. That being said, when I tried XDM, the speeds were indeed a bit faster than Firefox's (or any other browser's) download manager. For the price of free, it is quite impressive.

For testing purposes I downloaded several files and videos in Firefox and XDM. My laptop's wireless adapter is shoddy, so the downloads were averaging at about 3MB/sec and the peak speed was just over 4 MB/sec in the browser.

When I tried it on XDM the result was slightly better; the average speed was around 4MB/sec while the peak speed was around 5.5MB/sec. The difference in the speed was about 22% but mileage varies as multiple factors such as the server load and speed, and the speed of the Internet connection.

Wired LAN is usually faster, so here are the XDM test results from the wired connection. Peak Speed - About 36 MB/sec averaging in the 18-20 range. Internet Download Manager delivered slightly higher average speeds at 22MB/s, while Firefox disappointingly averaged at 12MB/s.

Forget the peak speeds, the average speed is what's important. So, does using XDM make a difference? Yes, it is better than the speed that you get from your browser, and if you don't have a download manager I'd definitely recommend XDM. Again, mileage varies and you don't know how beneficial (or not) a download manager is until you gave it a try.

When you install Xtreme Download Manager and run it, you will see some options to install the browser add-on which is called XDM Browser Monitor. The extension is available on Mozilla's repository and the Chrome Web Store which means you can install it on any Firefox based or Chromium based browser. XDM uses the Browser Monitor to capture the URLs to download the file.

The easiest way to download files using Xtreme Download Manager is obviously to use the web browser and selecting the download option. But, the File menu has a few other options. You can manually add a URL to download a file or add one from the clipboard. There is even a batch download option which you can use for downloading multiple files at once.

The Downloads menu in XDM can be used to pause, resume or restart a download. It also has a task scheduler, which allows you to set the URLs in a queue and start/stop it at a time and date of your choice.

You can configure the Xtreme Download Manager settings from the Tools menu. This includes selecting the download folder, maximum number of simultaneous downloads, overwrite existing files option and a few other Network, Scheduler, Password Manager options. You can also set XDM to make your antivirus scan each downloaded file and define exceptions from the Advanced Settings.

XDM places the downloaded files in different folders (Documents, Compressed, Music, Video and Programs) based on the file's extension. For e.g TXT or DOCX are saved to documents, MP3 or FLAC to the music folder, and so on. This is exactly how IDM handles downloads too. You can change the folders for each category from the Tools> Options menu.

Xtreme Download Manager can refresh the link for a download, just like IDM. This is useful for resuming time-limited downloads and otherwise downloads that don't support resume. You can set a speed limit for the downloads if you don't want the program to use all your bandwidth.

Downloading a video using XDM is simple. Go to the web page which contains the video and you will see an option to download the video provided that you have installed the extension. Click it and pick a resolution from the list and XDM does the rest. You can also manually start the built-in video downloader in XDM and paste a video's URL.

If you have an account/subscription with the service you are downloading the video from, you can enter your credentials in the program. This step is only necessary in case the streaming service prevents unregistered users from accessing the videos.

The video converter didn't work for me when I clicked it. Perhaps it is designed to only work when downloading videos through the program. Go to a video's page and click download, a pop-up should appear prompting you to select where to save the file. It also has an option to "Convert" the video. The formats which XDM can covert to are: 3GP, 3G2, MP4, MP4 HQ and MP3. When I tested this, the resultant videos were fine.

I was slightly surprised that Xtreme Download Manager does everything that IDM can do. Sure there are a few bugs here and there, but for the price of free, I have no complaints. A portable version of XDM is available on SourceForge.

As a long time user of Internet Download Manager (I paid for two licenses about 5 years ago), I have no regrets about my decision. It still is the best, in my opinion. I might still keep XDM on the laptop.

i never use download manager and i am surprised why people think that downloading files with builtin download manager of browsers are impossible!

internet explorer support resume download since version 9, firefox since version 39 and chrome i dont remember the version number.

Lately I started using Multithreaded Download Manager (Firefox add-on, open source) for medium-large files and it feels really nice being able to do advanced stuff like pause and change the download link or increase the number of connections within my browser.

The author is working on a 2.0 version which will be coming out soon.

Xtreme Download Manager is an advanced and feature-full download manager that's designed to accelerate your download speeds by using a dynamic file segmentation system. It provides integration for most popular web browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, etc) through the installation of an addon. Xtreme Download Manager also supports downloading videos from YouTube and other streaming sites.

Xtreme Download Manager's interface has a very modern look, and is fairly easy and straightforward to use. On the left side are several categories to help you sort your downloads into their different file types. From the top-right corner, you can set the filters to show only complete, incomplete, or all downloads. From down in the lower-right corner, you can use a switch to enable and disable the web browser integration.

To begin downloading a file, just go ahead and click on the Add URL button down in the lower toolbar. This will open a small popup window where you can provide the link for the file you wish to download, as well as set a location to save the file to. You can also choose to simply add the download to a queue, if you wish. If you want to save a video, just hit the Download Video button in the toolbar. Then you can provide a link to the video you want to download, and also set the video resolution options.

Once you start a download, another small window will popup, displaying the current progress of the download. To hide this window, click on MORE... and then click Hide. From the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, you can pause, resume, and delete the currently selected download. When downloading a video, you can also opt to preview the partially downloaded video file.

Xtreme Download Manager also has a built-in media converter, which you can use to convert videos that you have downloaded. Just select a completed video in the download list, then click on the Media converter button to open the converting window. Here, you can choose from a list of video and audio conversion presets, or manually set your own parameters. Then, simply choose an output location, and hit Convert.

Xtreme Download Manager also allows you to schedule download queues. Simply open the Downloads menu at the top of the screen, and click on Queue and scheduler. From this page, you can manage your download queues, and schedule them to start and stop at any time and date you choose, as well as be repeated on certain days, if need be.

Xtreme Download Manager provided great download speeds, and in general worked very well during my use of it. I did, however, encounter some issues when trying to download YouTube videos, though this may have just been a problem on my system. All in all, Xtreme Download Manager is a great choice for anyone who needs a fast and powerful download manager.

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