Myth about Download Managers

Every download manager claims to increase the download speed multiple times. Surely they are of great help and can’t think of myself without one. But this post targets the users which are from countries like India where high speed internet is still yet to see all over the country.

Without Download Manager

• The browser asks for the file from the server.
• A connection is established between the client and the server.
• File transfer starts but the speed is limited by the server to reserve the bandwidth for other users.

With Download Manager

• The browser asks for the file from the server.
• Multiple connections are established between the client and the server.
• File transfer starts and the speed is as many times as the number of connections are established.

Here comes a myth. Many users (novice) assume that it increases the download speed but they are not aware of the fact that maximum speed is limited by their connection speed. Users with slow connections usually don’t get much improvements because the bandwidth supported by many servers for a single connection is greater or equivalent than the one with slow connections. For Eg: A server supports 128Kbs bandwidth for a single connection so a user with 128Kbps connection will not see any improvement in download speed. If the user downloads a file without using download manager then he will be able to achieve the 128 Kbps speed. For users with slow connection, download manager speeds only serve the feature of resuming broken downloads. They are of no use for increasing the download speed for such users.

A refined version of this post – Download Manager myth.