Shouldn’t downlaoding be easy?

It’s 2 days I’m trying to get Visual Studio 2008 beta 2, a true pain.

Both the two download manager proposed as plug-ins by msdn site (an ActiveX for IE and a Java applet for firefox) don’t work. From two different computers, so is not my problem. I suspect the reason is the web server replying with a 302 HTTP code (temporally moved) to the first request, but I’m not sure.

Ok, I said to my self. It’s time to get a download manager. And I started surfing Softpedia looking for something freeware. The first I tried was VisualVGet. The maximum speed I was able to obtain over 12Mbits DSL line was 5Kb/s. I tried to tweak it a little bit, but nothing happened. Uhm… I need the beta 2 before the final version is released…

Then I remembered of GetRight, I used it a lot in the past. Isn’t free, but the trial period should be enough, I thought. Quickly downloaded and installed. But never been able to use it. The only thing I was able to do was seeing the process getright.exe starting, and shortly terminating. No windows, no alert. No messages in event viewer. A software I will never buy.

Finally, again via Softpedia, I found FDM (Free Download Manager). That is what a program of this kind should be: easy. I learned to use it in about 30 seconds, configured in 15 and, first of all, downloaded Visual Studio in a couple of hour, having the download speed at 350/400 Kb/s, as expected. And… if not clear from the name, it’s free!

~ by Matteo on October 23, 2007.