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I mean, can't Google Chrome's and Firefox'es implement the same logic as the download manager extensions do?

One might say that the download managers use multi threading which not might be a good experience for browsing rest of the web pages; but even in single threaded downloads, even free download managers are much faster : where as the paid ones like IDM are superfast in any case!

rahulg
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The point is not the number of threads but the number of simultaneous downloads. Ie. similar to torrent clients, some dl managers may split a single file into multiple parts and download them simultaneously.

This will result in significant difference in the total time needed to complete the download when the origin server limits the bandwidth per download request. If different parts of the same file are being downloaded by multiple requests simultaneously, the total download speed multiplies.

marekful
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  • Thanks, but as I mentioned, I see significant speed difference even on single threaded servers like 4shared and other sites! – rahulg Feb 24 '14 at 09:38
  • See the 2nd paragraph. That explains just why that is. Threads have nothing to do with this. – marekful Feb 24 '14 at 11:25
  • Alrighty, then why don't browsers themselves implement it? Other web browsing will be affected??? – rahulg Feb 24 '14 at 11:51
  • I guess, because that's not the primary purpose of browsers, but this is really a question to ask on a browser's developer forum. Once the browser provides the URL for a resource, the user is free to chose whatever download method they think is the best for them. – marekful Feb 24 '14 at 12:31
  • I don't even thing DLM make any difference at all unless you're using multiple network interfaces, because the speed and the time it takes to download the whole file will be same. The only thing they are good for is for pausing and resuming downloads and keeping track of other stats. – TheRealChx101 Dec 19 '19 at 10:24