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One of the features that I like the most is that if you are downloading a music, audio or video clip, you can play or view it while the clip is still downloading. This is a very useful feature for me because it spares me the time and frustration of downloading a file only to find out that I either already have the file, or that the file is not the one that I want. Not only does it help you download files more efficiently, it also speeds up your Internet connection speed. When used in conjunction with the software program Speedoptimizer, the Speedbit Download Accelerator can increase your download speed by a significant margin. Speedoptimizer is not free, but it is worth the cost in my opinion. Even if you don't purchase speedoptimizer, you will still experience faster downloads with DAP. The Speedbit Download Accelerator interface is also very user friendly and simple to learn. 
In addition to using the common method of splitting a file into smaller pieces to make it easier to download, Speedbit Download Accelerator also takes the time to look for faster mirrors. The program also has a cool feature that allows you to download parts of a file separately from several different websites simultaneously. This is a very useful feature when you are downloading from a site that has put restrictions on the download speed that you can use. Other features that come in handy are the ability to pick up interrupted downloads where they left off, log on to password protected sites, and schedule downloads during "off peak" times when less people will be on the site in order to reduce the risk of crashes and slow downloads. Speedbit Download Accelerator also comes with additional tools for organizing your media files and locating games in addition to providing the basic FTP client. In addition, the paid version also includes a feature that allows you to resume a download from any site at any time, regardless if the server supports the download or not. If you are a heavy downloader, you may want to consider spending the extra money just to have this feature, which can save you a great deal of time and aggravation. All downloaded files are also placed in a specific folder, which can be found in My Documents for easy retrieval. If you have a high-speed connection, you can experience up to a 200 percent increase in speed after installing Speedbit Download Accelerator, which is quite impressive.
Other cool features include a handy toolbar in IE as well as the ability to be used with various web browsers such as Firefox or Mozilla. The program is also very user friendly and simple to navigate. While the Speedbit Download Accelerator is a good product overall, there are a few drawbacks that you should be aware of. For example, the reason why Speedbit Download Accelerator is free is because it is uses advertising to make money. In other words, the program is ad supported so you will see ads for various products and services when you are using the program. The ads can be seen in the "information panel", which can be found on the right hand portion of the website. It can be a little off-putting at first, but after a while I got used to it and it did not bother me anymore. This is not to be confused with adware or spyware, which threaten your network security and can slow down your computer. Most anti spyware and anti virus programs will detect the DAP as a minimal threat or no threat as all, so the ads will in no way interfere with the use of your computer. If you are the type of person that is just annoyed by any ads and want to avoid them at all costs, you may consider upgrading to the paid version, which contains no ads. Another thing that may present a problem for some uses is the multi-source download feature discussed earlier. While it is definitely a cool feature to have, it can also come with its share of risks, especially if you do not know what you are doing or do not have adequate protection on your computer. While Speedbit Download Accelerator seems to download just fine from the majority of content management systems, you may experience difficulty if you try to download form a site that does not support multi-source downloading programs like DAP. The ability reduce download time for large files by locating the best mirrors and downloading different parts of a single file from multiple sources is probably Speedbit Download Accelerator's greatest strength-and largest potential risk to your computer. While searching for faster mirrors on a file, Speedbit Download Accelerator may inadvertently start downloading from untrusted, unknown or malicious source. It the legitimate, trusted website or host is experiencing technical difficulties or is down due to heavy traffic on the network, the downloader may end up with a malicious file instead of the one they were originally downloading for. For example, you may try to download a poplar software program from its own company website, site that is often the safest way to go. But if your network is having low bandwidth or the company website is experiencing technical difficulties that the time you are trying to download, Speedbit Download Accelerator will automatically pick another site that may not be as secure to download the program from. This can result in you receiving files from unknown and suspicious sources which can infect your computer with all kinds of viruses and malicious programs. The best way to avoid this problem is to make sure you check the properties section and verify that you are downloading from the original URL or not. If you are not sure if the source you are downloading from is safe, your best bet would be to only use Speedbit when you are sure that the source as well as the file being downloaded is legitimate. Another problem that may come up is diffulculty with uninstalling the program. On some occasions, Speedbit Download Accelerator will not uninstall. Many other Speedbit products have this problem as well. This problem is most likely to occur when you try to uninstall an old version of Speedbit Download Accelerator iand installing a new version for the program without rebooting first. When you finally do get around to rebooting the computer, the newer versions of the program get deleted by mistake because the file names are similar to the old versions that are scheduled to be erased. You will then see the ads that are left behind from the old version of DAP still showing up on your Add or Remove Programs list. This problem can easily be avoided by rebooting the computer, reinstalling the new version of Speedbit Download Accelerator, rebooting again, uninstall the program again and then reboot. The program should be successfully removed by then. If you are using a Windows 98 version of Speedbit Download Accelerator, you may notice extremely large leaks of memory when using the program. The reason for this is that Windows 98 version of the program is extremely resource intensive and forces you to close other running programs in order to use the download manager, even if you have more than enough memory on your computer. DAP also has a tendency to become a bity "buggy" from time to time and does not seem to respond to or recognize any error messages or site problems when downloading. Instead, it will keep attempting to download the file over and over again. Overall, Speedbit Download Accelerator will definitely increase the speed of downloads and file transfers and I think it is a very useful program to have. If you are somewhat knowledgeable about computers, you can easily put some protections in place that will reduce the chances of experiencing a bug or malicious file. |
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