If you want free options you can look at Eagleget or XDM. They are not as good as IDM but perform better than FDM.
ADM (Ant Download Manager) doesn't slow down boot-time which I found IDM did (most power tools such as Wise360 will tell you how much it slows it down). Uses fewer resources and was able to catch more than IDM. Finally, included a file converter for music and video files. I only wish they made a Linux version too
For me, it is when I happen to try to download from less stable locations and the idea of trying to restart a download is not always foolproof via any web browser. Mostly if the place I am downloading from is slow and the ability to pull parts of it helps speed up the download.
Because they are better at handling big files, gives almost 3x more speed,resume pause is good, ability to extract audio video from a site, and you dont have to start over if pc or app is shut down accidentally.
"Launch Internet Download Manager on startup" is not required for the functioning of IDM and can be disabled. I have also disabled "Run module for monitoring in IE-based browsers........." as not required for me. No system or boot slow down here.
That was never the case with me. If I didn't have IDM start up sometimes the browser would not catch the download. Even if it did, once the program was running it had the habit of re-adding itself back to start up.
I use IDM with startup and run module options disabled for a long time and never had the mentioned issues.
And what performance does one count, it downloads as fast as my line can take it, it sniffs links from most pages, what is definitely missing is referral
idm will re add itself in start up if you disable idm in start up programs through task manager or ms config. to properly disable idm in start up, user needs to disable startup in idm settings. and i always keep idm disabled in start up, and never had any issue with catching downloads.
As I tested the jD some time ago, the download speed on my Internet was just about 2/3 of what IDM is doing! And as I use up to 20GB/File, that speed matter a lot (for me)! Beside of that, I couldn't download from some sites in Germany, Suisse, Chin, and Russia what did not give me any problems with IDM! As for any software used, it's all about what the user needs and get! Or am I wrong?
IDM is better than JDM or FlashGet or anything else imo. JDM needs a portion of resources and seems impractical for simple downloads. FlashGet seems ancient for me. Ant Download Manager may have some benefits while downloading directly from filehosts but I find it not as comfortable as IDM.