Free Download Manager

verry good

I typically don't like to publicly shame a company on a forum for bugs, but this bug is critical IMO and I reported over a year ago (as in submitted bug report ticket #272855). If you do a file integrity hash value check, FDM computes the hash and displays it. The letters A through F, if any in the hex number are all lower case. If you enter a hash value to compare against using CAPITAL letters, the file integrity will fail with the message 'Verification Failed', giving the user the impression that the download is no good. If you enter the hash value using lower case letters, the comparison returns valid (obviously, the hash value you enter must be correct, capitial or lower case). IMO, this is a critical bug, because a user may try to re-download a file over and over and over, thinking he has a corrupted file, when in fact the file is fine. And honestly, for a file download program, getting hash value comparison is pretty essential, if you're going to even offer that functionality , it has to be right. For a real large file (think Apple OS updater), this is a lot of wasted time and bandwidth. And all because of simple error between using Capital vs lower case letters. The bug is so obvious; the program is comparing what the user enters directly to the hash value it calculated, as a string comparison. ONE line of code in the C language will perform a case conversion on a string; problem solved. Disappointing, otherwise, great download manager.

Crashes on launch in OS 10.9.5.

HEADS UP WARNING! The app on this page is fine and legit, but be aware there is a Firefox addon hosted at addons.mozilla.org with the name 'Download with FDM (Free Download Manager) which is made to look like it is a FF addon that integrates with the app discussed on this page. The addon is bogus and appears to b a bitcoin mining software. Again, this is not about the app on this page, which is legit, but the FF addon that is masquerading as being related to this app. Mozilla strangely has not pulled the addon despite numerous users who have flagged it as malicious.

This seems like a nice download manager... if you use Chrome. However, I found that the Safari extension it installs prevents video playback on Safari. I discovered this when trying to use Plex Media Server. The videos would never play, but they played fine on Chrome. Same with YouTube and other sources. After much trouble shooting, thinking it was a Plex issue, I disabled the FDM extension in Safari, and video playback worked as it should. Reenabling it once again prevented video playback. I sent an email to the developer. I post this here just incase others tried this and had the same problem and wasn't expecting it to be from this extension. But otherwise this is a nice download manager. Hopefully they will fix that extension issue soon.

Best download manager around since speed download bit the dust. Light, clean and efficient and full featured ....and no spyware or bloatware. Amazing for a free app.