ABT Data Consulting has released what they describe as “the best all time download accelerator/manager for the Mac OS:” Speed Download 1.5.
“Ready for Mac OS X, this utility installs no system extensions, no control panels, no silly gadgets, hence results in no conflicts, just pure speed and performance,” Tony Yazbeck of ABT told MacCentral.
It’s designed for speeding up download times when you’re online. Speed Download offers multithreading so you can go online and download as many files as you want, simultaneously, he added. It works with Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Opera Web browsers (with more browser support coming soon).
Download speeds are very often far from their theoretical maximums. This can be due to general congestion of the Internet but often it is because servers will try and share bandwidth between clients, Yazbeck said. By using up to 32 simultaneous connections Speed Download helps overcome this limitation. All downloads are resumable and a queue system that supports schedules and scripting allows for efficient use of online time, he added.
You can open up to 32 connections per file. Speed Download offers support for both FTP and HTTP protocols and proxies. It’s AppleScriptable and lets you resume downloads. Its Contextual Menu plug-in ensures integration with browsers or other applications, Yazbeck said.
Speed Download, a US$20 application, sports a download queue that supports schedules. It’s Carbonized so it runs under Mac OS X. However, it also has multi-processor optimizations when running Mac OS 9 or higher.
“Our aim with Speed Download is to have it fully integrated within the operating system, so that it feels like it was always there, or rather always supposed to have been there,” Yazbeck said. “Our test labs, as well as some of our select customers have all returned very positive feedback.”
For more info or to download Speed Download 1.5 go to the product Web site. System requirements are Mac OS 8.6 or later (with the proper CarbonLib extensions) or Mac OS X 10.0.0 or later.