You’re handy with BitTorrent, you’ve learned your way around Usenet and you have all kinds of files streaming onto your hard drive. Learn how to automatically unpack, rename, convert and otherwise make your media ready for viewing with these 10 helper apps. More »
Firefox: DownThemAll, the Firefox extension that lets you automate and supercharge your downloads, is getting a big upgrade with a 2.0 release. Download throttling, private browsing support, Flash video and HTML5 support and lots more power user additions are on the way. More »
Mac only: When it’s time to download something via BitTorrent, most Mac users manage their torrents with the popular client, Transmission. Folx offers almost all of Transmission’s features, but adds folder organising, one-click torrent adding, and a download manager for your browser. More »
Windows/Mac/Linux: If you’re a frequent visitor to popular file sharing sites like Rapidshare you’ll want to grab a copy of JDownloader, a java-based tool that completely automates the downloading process. More »
Windows only: Last year we shared TubeMaster Plus with you, an extremely handy program for downloading videos and music from streaming sites. TubeMaster++ has been released and comes with a slew of new features. More »
Windows with Opera only: oGet improves on the limited and often non-existent integration between the Opera browser and third-party download managers, acting as a link between them. After installing oGet, you’ll be asked to select which download manager you would like oGet to pass your download requests to. The plug-in doesn’t actually install the download managers, so you’ll need to grab it on your own—check out the Hive Five for best download managers if you need some help picking one out. oGet supports over 25 managers including GetRight, FlashGet and LeechGet, among others. Depending on the content you click on, you’re offered the following options in your right-click context menu: download, download all, and download selection for downloading the contents of a link, an entire page, and a selection of files or links, respectively. oGet is free and works with Opera 9.0 and higher. oGet [via gHacks]
Windows only: Why download a hefty ZIP file only to find out that the file you needed is only a tiny fraction of the bulky download? Grab only the files you want with LoadScout. Plug in the address of the archive—a web or FTP address will do—and LoadScout remotely displays the contents. From there, you can browse the directories and files just like would if the archive was open on your computer. The option to cherry pick what you want to download is extremely helpful if all you need, for example, is a single driver file out of a bulky driver pack. In addition to remote archive browsing, LoadScout previews media like MP3 and AVI files by jumping to any location in the remote file and starting playback from there. Even if you intend to download the entire file, LoadScout lets you verify the contents before you waste time and bandwidth downloading it. LoadScout is freeware, Windows only.
LoadScout [via gHacks]
