Hi guys,
Do you know any good open source download managers for Linux that are being actively developed? Apart from wget, and yt-dlp, how do you download stuff from the internet? All GUI download managers that support Linux and I've been aware of are either abandoned by their developers or lack features (I mean good browser integration, grabber, etc.) compared to commercial download managers that exist on Winblows.
The following pages list several GUI/console download managers for Linux:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_of_applications/Internet#Download_managers
https://alternativeto.net/software/internet-download-manager/?platform=linux
Here is the status of some of the download managers that I've tested so far:
- uGet (https://archlinux.org/packages/?name=uget): It was a reasonably good GTK download manager. Abandoned by the original devs in 2020. There is no active fork of it either!
- Xtreme Download Manager (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xdman/): As much as I am aware, this is the most feature rich open source GUI download manager for Linux. The latest release from the author of xdman is version 8.0.29. The latest version was released in 2023. I think this is abandoned as well.
- JDownloader (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/JDownloader): It's written in Java! ::) Partially open source with a GPLv3 license. Contains non-free stuffs and malicious Ads.
- KGet (https://archlinux.org/packages/?name=kget): Download manager for KDE. Only integrates well with the Konqueror web browser.
- AB Download Manager (https://github.com/amir1376/ab-download-manager): I think this is a fairly new download manager. It's written in Kotlin. Lacks features compared to other download managers in this list.
- Persepolis (https://archlinux.org/packages/?name=persepolis): This is a GUI front-end for a console-based download manager named aria2. Doesn't have many features compared to the console application that it's written for.
You might have a look at this new kid on the block, Varia :
- https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/18djkg6/i_made_a_download_manager_for_gnome/
- https://github.com/giantpinkrobots/varia
- https://news.itsfoss.com/varia-download-manager/
I was already thinking of adding it to the omniverse repo.
artist
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/varia unofficial
just until it gets added, if it does
soundcloud-dl from the AUR, yt-dlp can also download from soundcloud but soundcloud-dl is better because it automatically saves the little thumbnail images and track info for your mp3 player, and has various other soundcloud specific features. It often needs rebuilding after python updates and also it's dependencies, you will know by the module not found warnings. The easiest way with minimal typing I found is just to -Rs soundcloud-dl with your favorite AUR helper then up arrow and edit it to -S soundcloud-dl to reinstall and rebuild them all together, because they are all pretty small packages. :D (It is a console app though.)
Hello,
I sometimes use Clipgrab offered in Appimage :
https://clipgrab.org/download-clipgrab/
But most of the time yt-dl + xclip do the job.
I created a launcher that points to this little script :
#!/bin/sh
yt-dlp -S 'res:1080' `xclip -o`
Then I just have to highlight or copy (Ctrl+C) the URL and click on my launcher.
Another I only use rarely is Simple Screen Recorder, but I couldn't get the audio capture to work without Pulse Audio using alsa only. It might be possible to configure but I didn't find a quick and easy method. So I installed it in a Devuan install with Pulse Audio which I already had for other peculiar software. The benefit of this is that it can save the screen and audio as you experience it, so can capture things when other things fail.
Simple Screen Recorder is a downloader?
Packages varia and aria2p are now available in the omniverse repository.
artist
Thank you for this suggestion. This one looks promising. It also integrates well with Firefox. Although, I don't like the fact that Varia is mostly written in python. Because its GUI can feel a little bit slow from time to time. Its core is written in C++, however.
Thank you for this suggestion. I already heavily use yt-dlp with mpv. I didn't know there is also a similar package for downloading files from soundcloud, too.
I am mainly looking for a viable open source alternative for IDM which is a pure Win32API proprietary download manager for Windows written in C++. I am yet to see an open source download manager for Linux that performs as well as IDM. What most open source alternatives lack is a proper grabber functionality similar to that of IDM. The grabber functionality can be used to download all files from a webpage. IDM works fine with wine but I don't like to use wine as installing it compromises the security of my Artix Linux installation. Currently I run it on a Windows VM but it's a huge pain to load a VM just to download stuff from the internet. Unfortunately, for downloading huge files, like Linux ISOs, the built-in download manger of Firefox is not also very reliable.
This is not a download manager.
Simple Screen Recorder downloads things you can't download - e.g. set it to record the whole screen via hot key presses at 1080p and the audio, display the content at full screen FHD, hit the hot keys to start recording, start the content, then stop at the end and trim the result with any video editor.
I think this is more suitable for ripping media from websites that enforce DRM. However, I still don't think it can be used as a full fledged download manager.