Internet Download Manager (IDM)

Internet Download Manager is a program that integrates with your internet browser and replaces the default download manager in order to provide a better downloading experience and a 500% increase in download speed. Aside from the massive speed boost, Internet Download Manager -or IDM for short- offers a few extra features on the side, like the download scheduler, the possibility to resume broken downloads and a few more goodies that might just convince you to never go back to “stock”.

Internet Download Manager - Main

Installation & Requirements

The installation process for Internet Download Manager is fast, simple and clean of any toolbars, additional programs or nagging windows. The bad news is that IDM is not a freeware program so it actually comes in the form of a 30 days trial, after which a paid license is needed in order to be able to use IDM further. A great thing about buying a license is that the full version actually benefits from even bigger boosts in download speeds.

As for system requirements, Internet Download Manager is available exclusively for the Windows platform and it supports the following versions: 98/2000/XP/Vista/Win 7.

Internet Download Manager supports proxy servers, ftp and http protocols, firewalls, redirects, cookies, authorization, MP3 audio and MPEG video content processing. IDM integrates seamlessly into Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, MSN Explorer, AOL, Opera, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Firebird, Avant Browser, MyIE2, and all other popular browsers to automatically handle your downloads. You can also drag and drop files, or use Internet Download Manager from command line. Internet Download Manager can dial your modem at the set time, download the files you want, then hang up or even shut down your computer when it's done. 

Interface
The Internet Download Manager Interface doesn’t offer anything special in terms of looks. You would expect to see a nicer design on a tool that integrates with your latest version of Chrome or with Firefox 5 but all you get is a plain interface that resembles the Windows 98 theme. The big icons on the top are not that bad and they actually feature a bit of animation whenever you hover the mouse cursor over them, but other than that there’s nothing much to admire.
On the other hand, looks are not everything and IDM definitely proves that right. Overlooking the simple design you will most likely be surprised of what the software has to offer, not only in terms of improved download speed, but features such as the highly customizable download scheduler or the Grabber which is a tool that enables the user to easily download videos from video-sharing sites such as YouTube. To keep your archive of downloaded files organized, IDM will automatically detect what type of file you are downloading and place it in the appropriate download folder.
There is one weird thing worth mentioning regarding the buttons on top, and it’s this one icon in particular named “Tell a Friend”. This button is a shortcut that once pressed it will create a Microsoft Outlook message that’s meant to tell your contacts how “cool” IDM is. Perhaps complaining about this feature seems like nitpicking, but it would’ve been better for this option to be more out of sight and not right next to the neat tools such as the grabber or scheduler which are actually useful.
Pros
- Very powerful and low on resources
- Lots of useful features such as the Scheduler, Download organizer or the Grabber
- Clean installation process with no toolbars or adware
- Easy to use interface
- It easily integrates with pretty much any browser available
Cons
- The user interface is a bit disappointing in terms of design
- Shareware, available only for 30 days of trial
- Available only for Windows OS
- There are free alternatives
Alternatives
Internet Download Manager is a very powerful tool that will definitely leave a good impression after the very first few uses. However, for those who prefer another platform besides Windows, or for those who would prefer a freeware product, there are a few options out there besides IDM.
One of these alternatives is Free Download Manager, a tool similar to IDM that boasts with 600% increase in download speed and useful tools such as the  scheduler, resume of broken downloads and pretty much everything else that can be found on IDM. Free Download Manager is available only for Windows as a freeware product.
Another alternative to IDM could be DownThemAll, a free Mozilla Firefox extension that offers new downloading capabilities and features to Firefox users. Unlike IDM,  DownThemAll is unfortunately designed to work only with Mozilla Firefox, but on the brighter side it offers support for Windows, Mac and Linux altogether. And of course, there’s DAP (Download Accelerator Plus) – one of the best managers and accelerators out there – or FlashGet, a complete lightweight download accelerator and download manager.
Conclusion
Internet Download Manager is a very powerful download manager offering an extensive array of features that will definitely improve your downloading experience. It has its small flaws and there are some minor options missing which can be found on other freeware alternatives, but overall IDM can be described as a good product and for those who would prefer using IDM after the 30 day trial period the good news is that the program is not greedy at all and buying a license is not really expensive.

Download Internet Download Manager now

Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ Review: It’s Tempting

If you consider where Android was when it started versus how far it's advanced in 18 months with Android 2.2, you might get brain freeze.

Android 2.2—aka Froyo—is the most usable, polished iteration of Android yet. But more importantly, it's the first release that makes Android truly compelling for a broad consumer audience. Froyo's updates aren'tthat radical, but serious under-the-hood improvements and refinements throughout make it tangibly more pleasing to use.

Need for Speed

Without getting overly technical, Android executes its apps in a layer above its core Linux OS in a virtual machine called Dalvik. One of the major under-the-hood changes in 2.2 is a just-in-time compiler for Dalvik, which—here come the chocolate sprinkles—results in a 2x–5x performance boost for CPU-heavy code. That means faster apps—faster everything. (Google demoed it last week with the game Replica Island, which kept a higher framerate while doing more stuff in 2.2 compared to its performance on Android 2.1)

Full size

In everyday use, the new compiler combined with Android's efficient memory management means that pretty much everything you do, in both the general OS as well as apps, feels more responsive. The speed increase itself isn't staggering in and of itself, but the subconscious effects of a smoother, less draggy experience are real. The slowdowns and stutters I've come to just expect from Android (even with beefier processors) are mostly gone. And after a year-and-a-half of dealing with them, it's kind of remarkable to no longer rage at Android's persistent lagging.

According to Google, this speed boost incongruously comes with slightly better battery life. But any power improvements haven't been dramatic enough for us to notice during tests on the Nexus One.

The other place you'll subtly notice things are faster is web browsing. Again, Google's promising 2x faster JavaScript rendering speeds thanks to the new V8 engine, and this is actually a pretty solid estimate.

I compared a Nexus One with 2.1 to one running 2.2 (both on Wi-Fi). Here's what I saw on a handful of sites, some with Flash set to "on demand" (that's essentially "off"); some with with Flash turned on completely. Plus we threw the Flash-less iPad in for comparison. As you can see, the boosts are non-trivial—extra speed that adds up to a far happier browsing experience.

The biggest feature in the browser is that it now supports Adobe Flash, an optional download from the Android Market. That might be more blessing than curse. If you leave Flash turned on, the purpose it will most often serve is to render Flash ads. Fortunately, you have the option to make plugins for the Android browser available "on demand," so it works more like ClicktoFlash—you click when you want a piece of Flash to render. The version of Flash available now is "pre-beta" so it doesn't have common desktop features like hardware acceleration for h.264 video. It's also not exactly perfect at rendering stuff, as you can see comparing this Flash-based infographic on the phone versus desktop, which limits its utility, as least given the way I browse on a phone. (I'm not a Farmville player, and Hulu blocks Android 2.2.)

It's the Little Things

The speed boost in 2.2 is fantastic, but what makes Froyo a truly great update is that it tightens bolts all across the entire platform. Android has evolved into a real product, on a totally different level than its first year.

One of Android's major shortcomings has been its interface, which has varied from wildly inconsistent to simply confusing. The UI is largely the same—it's still more complex and less elegant than either the iPhone or Palm's webOS—but it's striking how much nicer it feels thanks to even a few tweaks.

• The messages app—for SMS and MMS—and Google Talk now share a mostly unified interface with the Gmail app: black-text-on-purpleish background, moving away from the incongruous white-text-on-black.

• Inside of Gmail, you can now quickly switch between accounts by tapping the name of the account in the top right hand corner.

• When you plug the phone into your computer and turn on USB storage, a fancy Android graphic now tells you what's up, with clear instructions about mounting and unmounting your phone.

• The camera app's controls are markedly improved, putting all of the settings like white balance and flash mode right up front, rather than sticking them behind a finicky slider that didn't work half the time.

• Usefully and enjoyable—and with maybe just a little poking at Apple—galleries now have a pinch-to-peek gesture, so that you can see what photos are inside of a gallery before you open it.

Perhaps my favorite tweaks are on the home screen.

• Since smartphones have been shedding buttons like promise rings on prom night, a new center widget on the home screen puts the dialer, app menu and browser permanently at your fingertips.

• Pressing and holding the central apps button brings up thumbnail previews of every screen on your desktop. Update: Originally, these preview tabs popped up only when you pressed and held the left/right desktop buttons—which I never used, since I always swiped from one desktop to another.

Lingering Issues

Android's still not all the way there. There are still too many buried features, hidden by menu button, and general complexities, like a separate email app for non-Gmail accounts, remain. Selecting text, while now possible in the Gmail app, is confusing. And the white-on-black interface for the dialer and contacts seems even more out of place now that messages and Gtalk use a lighter UI.

The interface could always stand to be sleeker and more graceful. It's so strange, in a way, that Android has the most impressive voice controls and speech-to-text of any phone out there, but basic things like copy-and-paste can feel as slippery as brain surgery on a snail. The problem extends to the Android Market. Sure, one day we might be pushing apps to the phone from our desktop, but app discoverability, particularly on the phone itself, is a long way from optimal.

But you can see where things are going. And it feels more unified and complete than it ever has, which is a good thing. (Except the touch keyboard. It still feels like you're typing with two fingers glued together, and Andy Rubin didn't offer us much hope on that front.)

The App Scene

Many other improvements involve apps. Like the Android Market, which finally has an "update all apps" button—or you can even allow apps to update themselves automatically, if you trust them.

Android now has a built-in, legit task manager, and while it's a little too deep in the settings, you can kill unruly apps that gobble memory. (Thankfully, I haven't had to do so in 2.2). You can move apps to the SD card, which is a big deal since you were previously limited to however many apps would fit within the puny internal storage in the phone. (This appears to be something developers have to allow, since only a couple of apps gave me the option to do so.)

And, while I haven't tested this (since I'm using the same phone and I don't think any apps support the API yet), apps can back up your data, so when you move to a new phone, all of your inner-app data will show up with the fresh install.

While it's not too much use to anyone on AT&T in NY or SF, perhaps the biggest new feature is the portable hotspot, which works as perfectly as you'd hope. Check the box, and you're sharing your 3G connection over Wi-Fi with any device you want. Security is limited to WPA2, unfortunately, making integration with older devices difficult. It also works while charging, so why even bother with tethering?

The official Twitter app is built-in, much like Facebook has been since Android 2.0, and it is deeply integrated with your contacts. The setup is automagical, though if it screws up the pairing—say if somebody's Twitter handle gets assigned to the wrong person—good luck fixing it. Still, the effect is charming, especially if a contact is as deeply tied into Google as you are, since every avenue by which you could possibly want to contact them is at your fingertips. (On the flip side, Google's contact management within Gmail is still pretty horrendous.)

Accounts are improved in a few ways. For me, the most important is that now you can see calendars from every Google account on the phone, whereas before only calendars from one primary account synced. But serious corporate users get some of the love too, since Exchange calendars work now as well. I didn't test any of the Exchange administrator features, like remote wipe, but I'll say being able to set a real alphanumeric passcode for the screenlock instead of a grease-trail-reside gesture sounds much, much improved.

Google's Good Stuff...That's Not In Froyo

Some of the most impressive stuff that Google showed off last week is still a ways off—features that we know are coming but won't make it into Froyo.

The current built-in music app is as clunky and ugly as ever, and managing music on the phone is not nearly as easy as it should be. But Google's Simply Media-powered streaming demo, which was demonstrated streaming an entire library from a home computer to a phone, wouldn't just fix the sync issue, it would leapfrog what everybody else currently offers. (Though the unlimited streaming Zune Pass for Kin would be a close second.)

Also, no third-party apps are currently using the upcoming cloud-to-device messaging service Google showed off—it's like push notifications on the iPhone, but super-powered, so you could send links and even begin app downloads on your phone from, say, your desktop browser.Update: The Chrome-to-Phone extension is live, and it works for the basic things Google showed, like sending links, maps, and YouTube videos from your browser to the phone. It was pretty instant, though I think I tried to send too much stuff to fast, and wound up building up a queue of links that got stuck, and then executed really fast, one after the other. Still, impressive. (No OTA app or music downloading yet, though.)

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Hello, Android

Android 2.2 is the first version of Android that feels totally complete—it performs like it should and it has most of the features it should. It's not quite at the point my mother could use it without a precarious learning curve, but you can see how it's going to get better. It's safe to say that with Froyo, Android has become something that most people really can use—and love.

Considering again where Android was 6, 12 and 18 months ago, I can believe the promises Google has made: that Android will blow your mind in another 6 months. The future of Android really has never looked brighter.

Fastest version of Android yet, in an actually noticeable way

Interface improved in small ways all around

Flash!

Built-in portable hotspot powers (though subject to your carrier's evil whims)

Android Market is better in key ways, but needs more work

Flash!

The keyboard still blows

The music and videos situation is pretty sad

The overall complexity of Android remains