Internet Download Manager (IDM) is a shareware

Shareware

The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...

 download manager

Download manager

A download manager is a computer program dedicated to the task of downloading possibly unrelated stand-alone files from the Internet for storage...

. It is only available for the Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

.

Features

IDM allows users to automatically download any file types, divides downloads into multiple streams for faster downloading, batch downloading, Import and Export of download jobs, auto/manual update of download address, supports multiple queues and lists recent downloads for easy access to files. It can search for mirrors

Mirror (computing)

In computing, a mirror is an exact copy of a data set. On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site.Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads...

 in order to increase download speeds and also supports downloading videos from many streaming video sites. The IDM algorithm

Algorithm

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...

 includes dynamic segmentation throughout the downloading process. IDM supports HTTP, FTP, HTTPS

Https

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is a combination of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol with SSL/TLS protocol to provide encrypted communication and secure identification of a network web server...

 and MMS protocols, Microsoft ISA and FTP proxy servers and authentication protocols like Basic, Negotiate, NTLM, and Kerberos allowing for storage and auto-authentication of user names and passwords.

The software ships in two versions. One is a free, 30-day trial (some versions are a 15-day trial). The application stops functioning at the end of the trial period unless a license is purchased. The other version is commercial for continual use. IDM works with Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer

Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...

, Opera

Opera (web browser)

Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...

, Netscape Navigator

Netscape Navigator

Netscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser that was popular in the 1990s. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share, although by 2002 its usage had almost disappeared...

, Apple Safari, Flock

Flock (web browser)

Flock was a web browser that specialized in providing social networking and Web 2.0 facilities built into its user interface.Earlier versions of Flock used the Gecko HTML rendering engine by Mozilla....

, Google Chrome

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...

, Mozilla

Mozilla

Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....

, and Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...

.