In Operation
Here’s an image of AB Download Manager in action. We’re downloading a few ISOs of popular Linux distributions.
By default the program uses a dark theme, but we’ve switched to the light theme.
The UI is well designed, it’s simple to use, and sports a modern appearance.
There’s the option to create and manage downloads in queues. And more usefully the software lets you set up a scheduler for queues to start and stop automatically. That’s very handy if you’re sharing your net connection with family members. And the global speed limiter option should also help to keep everyone happy.
By default the program starts when you boot the computer, but this can be disabled.
Other features include:
- Browser integration with Firefox and Google Chrome. By default the app will listen to port 15151 but this can be changed.
- Batch downloads.
- Change the UI scale.
- Compact the top bar.
- Notification sound when a download is complete (this can be disabled).
- Use a proxy for downloading files.
- Change the thread count. By default a download has up to 8 threads but this can be changed.
- Internationalization support – there are translations but not for that many languages.
Summary
AB Download Manager is a capable download manager that will speed up your download speed particularly if you’ve got a fast internet connection.
The wonderful ps_mem utility reports that AB Download Manager’s memory footprint is around 637MB which is not particularly lean.
The project makes it clear that the Linux desktop app is in an experimental stage of development. We found lots of bugs in the software. For example, changing from the dark theme to light theme generates a whole raft of errors on our systems.
Website: abdownloadmanager.com
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: AmirHossein Abdolmotallebi
License: Apache License 2.0
AB Download Manager is written in Kotlin. Learn Kotlin with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction and Installation
Page 2 – In Operation and Summary