Retriever Download Manager

The Retriever Download Manager application is currently at version 1.6. See the current list of updates.

This sofware is freeware and may be freely used by anyone.

This program was written completely in the Java programming language and will run on any operating system with a Java Runtime Environment installed (JRE 1.5 or higher).

Retriever allows you to download large files, such as games, software applications, music or video, easier and with more control than from your web browser, with it you can resume interrupted downloads at any time that's convenient or even schedule downloads to occur when you're away from your computer. Even if one server is too busy to accomodate you Retriever will automatically switch to another to continue your download.

You can temporarily pause your download and resume it instantly a few minutes later.

No matter how many times your download is interrupted or stopped Retriever gives you a successful download.

Features of Retriever include:

• Resumable FTP and HTTP downloads.
• Support for BitTorrent transfers.
• Support for Metalinks with full and partial hash verification, multi file support and display of metalink file information.
• FTP and HTTP server authentication.
• Support for HTTP referer, cookies and POST data.
• supports HTTP, FTP and SOCKS proxies with authentication.
• Ability to add file download mirrors.
• Ability to segment downloads so only a portion of the file will be downloaded. In the case of multi file torrents individual files can be selected for download.
• Scheduled downloading.
• Pausable downloading.
• Execute external application on download start and/or completion.
• Segmented downloading from multiple servers.
• User customizable icons. See Retriever's help documentation for details.
• Simultaneous download of a single file from multiple sources.
• Prioritized downloads which will take precedence over all others.
• Pre-allocation of storage for large files.
• Download mirror searching (powered by Yahoo! search).

View screenshot.

Retriever can capture downloads directly from Internet Explorer or Opera. See the IECapture and OperaCapture pages for more info.

Downloads can be input manually into the program or captured from the clipboard.

You can also drag and drop links onto the download list to capture them. If a selection of text is dropped, it will be parsed for links, you can use this behaviour to add multiple files at once.

If you wish to capture downloads from Mozilla or Firefox you can use the excellent utility FlashGot. Beginning with version 0.6.9 FlashGot provides integrated support for Retriever on Windows, on other platforms you will have to set up a custom download manager definition. Here's how:

• Install FlashGot.
• After restarting Mozilla or Firefox go to "Tools-FlashGot-More Options" in the menu.
• In the "General" tab click the "Add" button and enter "RetrieverDM".
• In the "Locate executable file" dialog browse for the location of "java".
• Now you need to enter the command arguments, enter the following exactly as it appears minus the quotes "-jar pathtoretriever [URL] [Referer:REFERER] [Cookie:COOKIE] [post:POST]", where pathtoretriever is the location of Retriever.jar. You are now ready to use FlashGot.

I have gratefully used the following components in making Retriever:

Yahoo! search apis for mirror searching.

jCookie library by Sonal Bansal for HTTP cookie handling.

The BrowserLauncher2 component.

JavaHelp component from Sun Microsystems for displaying application help.

Tango Desktop Project for Retriever's tango icon set. Additional icons from the Pasodoble icon theme.

Dean S. Jones Icon Collection for Retriever's gallant icon set.

Java Look & Feel Graphics Repository for Retriever's swing icon set.