Download managers seem to have gone out of fashion, for reasons that I cannot put my finger on, while ‘video downloaders’ have became commonplace. Enter ‘EagleGet’, a FREE download manager that combines both functions. It promises to (a) greatly increase your download speed, and (b) to let you to download videos from ANY video sharing site, in the highest possible quality.
EagleGet integrates into your browser and supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS, and RTSP protocols. Our take on it? It’s pretty darn cool.
Someone I met asked me about a free download manager the other day, and it occurred to me that I haven’t tried or tested any in a very long time . Which is why I set out to see what, if any, new download managers were out there. Ifound this one, and to be honest it made me wonder how I survived for so long without one.
Here’s four reasons why we like EagleGet:
(1) The ability to download streaming videos from YouTube and almost any video sharing service.
EagleGet embeds a button on the top right of your video while it is playing (see above). Very handy, and works on most (if not all) videos in your browser
(2) The ability to Pause and Resume downloads
This is the heart of any download manager, especially useful if you are downloading very large files (or if the server/source you are downloading from is unreliable; broken downloads can be continued).
(3) It can – maybe – accelerate your download speeds
According to the EagleGet website, the program “does not limit the amount of simultaneous tasks, and uses multi-threaded technology to accelerate downloads by splitting files into several parts and then transferring them simultaneously, thus increasing download speed scientifically.”
Which is all good and well, except that it may or may not result in faster downloads in reality. My experience with download managers’ claims of higher speeds is that it can work if you are downloading a handful of files simultaneously, while single file downloads are not affected (and can even be faster without download accelerators).
So, if you’re a heavy downloader of multiple simultaneous files, you may get faster downloads. Let us know about your experience in the comments section.
(4) It can organize your downloads into different folders
You can define different download destinations in the settings for archive, audio, video files etc.
The verdict:
EagleGet is a very nice download manager with a clean, pleasingly sparse interface and convenient browser integration, where your clipboard and browser are both monitored for downloading activity. The video download function is very well done and works extremely well.
There is something really pleasing about having control over your downloads – being intercepted and routed into the appropriate folders, being able to pause them, getting tray notifications at download completion, etc. Which is why I really like this program and recommend it wholeheartedly.
However, there are things that can be improved: the video download button can be unreliable, appearing one time and disappearing the next (on the same video service). Also, there doesn’t seem to be a way to pause it momentarily (aside from deactivating the extension in the browser), which is strange. But minor gripes overall.
Get EagleGet here (Window)
