Download acceleration. Do I need it or not?

There were days when you had to worry about your download speed; most people used downloading accelerating software to make sure they get the fastest download. But these days downloading content from the web is so simple, with all these new browsers.

Today most of the browsers have built –in download managers and you can manage multiple downloads with Firefox or Chrome without having to struggle with numerous download windows. These browsers also suppose pause and resume functionality. So what should you do? Should you use the download accelerator or should you simply use the browser?

There is no need to maintain a separate accelerating software if you have these browsers. You don’t have to worry about download speed while downloading your files with your browser, these days browsers make sure that you get the best download speed. There is not much difference in the download speed achieved with accelerating software and with a browser.

But there is one thing to consider before you decide to uninstall you download acceleration software. Though the browsers support pause and resume during download, often the links get broken when you pause the download, and you get a broken file downloaded as soon as you resume the download, and you have to start all over again. Moreover you could not pause your download and close your browser let alone your computer, for continuing in next session. Most download accelerating software provide resume facility, which enables you to resume the unfinished download even after months.

The single most prominent problem that stops most of the people from using browser’s download manager is the difficulty in finding the files after they have downloaded. Most would like to download a song directly to a folder containing their music but can’t figure out how, damn browser!

Here are the steps to configure your browser so that I will ask you where to save the downloaded file and won’t save it directly to some covert location.

For Firefox

Go to Tools>> Options>>

You will get a screen like this

Now select “Save files to” to always save downloaded files to selected location, or select “Always ask me…”. If you select the second options Firefox will always ask you where to save a downloaded file.

For Google Chrome

Click on the small wrench in the top right corner of the browser

You will get a screen like this

Click on options and you will get a popup screen like this

Click on the third tab called "Under the hood", now scroll down. You will see a small section labelled Downloads. Select any one of the option. If you want chrome to ask you every time, check the small check-box shown in red circle. You are good to go now ;)