A few months ago, I briefly tried SpeedDownload but I didn’t evaluate it in-depth. I realized recently that the time had come to spend more time with it and write a review. SpeedDownload2 is a download manager for Mac OS X. In an older review at SpyMac, they called YazSoft’s SpeedDownload2 a “wonder of development.” Were they right?When first launching the application it asks you if you want to install some plug-ins in order to “catch” clicks from browsers for download for the supported download formats. Prom that point on, every time you click a supported-by-SD2 file with your browser (I tried it with Safari), it will automatically load and start to download the file instead of the browser’s default download manager.
It is very important to use applications like SD2, iGetter, GodZilla, GetRight or wget with large downloads (in my case OSes, Linux distros or SDKs) because they support resuming and every time they need to resume they check if the paused file is “healthy” and they restart downloading from a “healthy” point. This functionality from download managers has saved me lots of headaches over the years.
SD2’s window consists of a list of download sources and a view of the downloadable files. “My Downloads” lists any current downloads that are going on, or files that are in the queue for future downloading. You can pause, resume, cancel, queue a download, while you also have the option to add mirrors to download the specific files in case the main server you are downloading is down.
The “My Servers” option can connect via Rendezvous or via samba or NFS to network servers to grab files. You can also share specific folders and files with other SD2 users!
The “Filters” option can move files to different folders after downloading depending on their file extension. It’s a great feature, but I think that maybe more kinds of filters should be added to this option.
There is a History option where you can see what you downloaded and when. I would be better, though, if SD2 was a bit more multi-user aware, allowing the administrator to check what other users have downloaded.
There is also a “MacShareware” option for the www.macshareware.net site, allowing users to click on a list of software and download it directly without the need to use a web browser. You can also drag and drop downloads to the “My Watch List” tab and so when there is a new version of the software you downloaded, the application will automatically let you know (and it will also be listed in the little “eye” icon in the OSX menubar/notification area where SD2 places an add-on).
Users can also create their own folders on the list on the left, for example “wallpaper downloads”. It would be more useful, though, if the Filters could place special rules for each user folder. For example, if I want all my “wallpaper downloads” files to be saved on another folder, the Filters should have let me do that.
SD2 also allows you to check out your network traffic (bandwidth monitoring). It is mostly a gimmick I believe, but a nice one, and makes SD2 feel even more complete.
Another nice feature is the “Schedule” option for the Queues. You can specify start and stop download times and what to do after the end of a downloaded queue (e.g. put computer to sleep, quit SD2, log out, shutdown computer, hang up modem etc).
The preference panel has a lot of options: proxy configuration, sharing (and I think I found a bug on this one, even after I “unshare” my folder from the context menu, the preference panel still list it as shared), password handling for servers that require it, support for sensitive servers (e.g. like Slackware’s FTP server that doesn’t support more than 3 simultaneous downloads per IP), dock integration and many more other options.
iGetter is the main competitor to SD2 on the Macs, but comparing the two apps side by side, iGetter is a very bare-bones app and it looks very unpolished UI-wise on my Panther, plus it’s more expensive.
In conclusion, I believe SD2 is one of the best utilities for any platform. It is an essential application. I usually just use GetRight or wget on my PC, and while they do the job for the basic download functions that I need, SD2 just brings a whole new level and functionality to “file downloading”. It is a highly recommended application, and the price ($20) is reasonable for what the app offers, and includes free upgrades.
Overall: 9/10
does aside from the gui-goodness, does this supply any major benefit over wget? likewise is there a need for an app like this if you dont download large items?
speed download sucks in general.
it adds stupid unecassary stuff to ur system
with safaris new download manager, sd 2 is useless!!!
and if u ever wanna use a download manager… iGetter is much better !
hmm….seems like a decent app, but I’d have to say Safari’s new download manager is more than adequite.
And in what way does it speed up downloads…..
I don’t see the point in this if you’re using the newest Safari, which supports file resuming.
The beauty of this application is that is attempts to open multiple download sessions for whatever file you’re trying to get; therefore you have more connections getting small chunks of data as opposed to a single big file from a single source. Safari’s DL manager is okay, but it’s not the fastest or most efficient way of getting a file.
Just my 2c worth.
Cheers,
BlackMacX
And in what way does it speed up downloads…..
In at least the windows version of similer apps, it connects to a download server multiple times, or even looks for mirrors. See some sites have a download cap per connection. This app gets around it.
More Mac reviews please! I’ve been trying to find an alternative to ProzGui for my Mac and you hit the nail on the head. Thanks!
These guys have somehow turn a useless product into a household name through ingenius and often dishonest (just look on VersionTracker and you’ll fishy 5-star entries) marketing.
SD doesn’t speed up a dial-up connection (they admit this themselves). And with a broadband connection, download is already so fast I don’t see the point of messing with a 3rd party software just to speed things up. Besides, it doesn’t speed up all downloads – only downloads from servers that have throttling in place to regulate downloads. This piece of shit software “get around” that and mess things up for servers providing those downloads.
Lots of users admit that they use it for the placebo effect. Please don’t waste money on this junk.
$wget -c http://www.server.com/myfile.xyz
ignore previous post on wget, i see somebody already mentioned it…like the very first post.
sigh.
I’ve tried other download managers for the Mac and Speeddownload is by far the best.. I download large files regularly from sites that sometimes require a username/pass (which is impossible with wget as far as I know).. it integrates nicely with every browser and supplies a cli tool that I can use to add things to the queue remotely. Other people’s opinions aside.. I like it.. I second the 9/10 rating..
I’ve used Speed Download 2 for nearly a year now, and I’m very happy with it. I’ve found it easy to use, almost self-explanatory, and since I”m still using Jaguar absolutely essential (it bugged me that no browser/dl mgr that came with the system had any resume dl/crash recovery, a feature I’d learned to love in Telix and take for granted since the days of Zmodem and Kermit). Since I have a dialup connection with a bandwidth of about half a bit, I’m prone to disconnection if I ask my browser to do anything whilst I have my download going in the background, so this is vital!
Also impressive is the price ($20) and the upgrade price ($NOTHING), and all upgrades have worked well with Jaguar. For someone who is still evaulating upgrading to Panther, it’s nice to (so far) not be forced up to 10.3 before I’m ready.
SD is an excellent value.
well since wget isn’t even standard in OS X, one would use curl, which does support usernames. Just do curl -u username:password -O http://path/to/file
generally, it is advisable to avoid putting one’s password directly in a command as it is assessable via history. most commands allow one to enter their password interactively:
curl –user username -O http://path/to/file
http://www.krasu.ru/soft/chuchelo/ – Downloader For X.
But anyway.. really use ‘screen’ + ‘wget’ and you’re away.
I purchased this when all I had was a crappy dialup: I still have a crappy dialup at home. I tried it for the trial period and it became an essential for me when an Apple update could take 1 day to download and you get disconnected at random. It may not be a faster download, but the banwidth throttle is absolutely perfect. It allows me to split my bandwidth up into downloading bandwidth and web browsing band width, so that I can do both at the same time without any funky site not found errors from my browser; the browser does this when there’s not enough bandwidth to make a good connection to a site. Not only that but I like how they identify themselves as Safari to sites.
If anyone has a way to make wget do all the above please tell me. The scheduling’s no big deal, that’s what cron is for, but I love being able to throttle the download at any time. Also yes I am using the latest safari and the download resume on it is nice, when it works right, but I needed to download IT first, and how do you think I was able to do that… SD2.
Good product. Glad someone reviewed it.
//from the bandwidth challenged
When do people realize that download accelerators are unfair and antisocial ways to speed up their downloads. They work at the cost of others: At the cost of the server which needs to spend extra processing power and bandwidth on you, and at the cost of the other people who try to download from the same host as you do, and at the cost of the general network between you and the server. If everybody were to use download accelerators the result would be that everybody would get significantly slower download speeds, a more congested internet and a heavily overloaded server which would be able to serve many more clients if people wouldn’t use these download accelerators. While download management is certainly a good thing, i’m really disturbed that “download acceleration” is widely accepted and not considered a bad and antisocial thing.
If this worked as advertised, I still wouldn’t agree that it would be antisocial. If you cut the time of your download by half or more, let’;s say, yhen someone else could get on after and have a faster download themsekves. I think that it would all be a wash in the long run.
The problem is that it doesn’t seem to work. I don’t know how many people actually have properly tested this, but I have. I havee a 3Mbs connection through Covad, and can download up to 325KBs. On sites that I can only get a fraction of that, I have tried this. Even when it opens multiple connections (very rarely), the total speed is about the same as the connection without the program. I have also found that the connection for the download drops more frequently with SD (any version) than without it, so the resume is needed more with SD than without it.
I have rarely experienced dropped downloads anyway. When I have attempted to contact them, giving the examples that I tried, they would respond with a form letter stating how good their program was. I was never able to actually get a PERSON to respond. I first tried this with Explorer on OS 9, and have tried all the later releases on X as well. The interface has gotten much better, but the performance is just as dismal. It’s really too bad, as I download large (100MBs to several GBs) files from companies I do business with (Ad agencies and such) and would be happy if this did work. As I pay $99.95 a month for my ISP, I wouldn’t mind paying even more if this program (or anything else that worked,nothing else I’ve tried has) if it did what it said.
Sorry about my spelling and grammatical errors. I didn’t realize that there was no edit first window as in many other discussion groups.
First experience with OS X Panther on a 640 MB G3 B/W:
Install went fine.
Started using system — iChat crashed three times in first 10 minutes.
ThinkFree Office crashed nearly every time I loaded a Word or Excel document.
Apple’s Mail client crashed every time I tried to forward a message.
Back to Windows XP!