In the days of fast Internet and fast pace of life, we all are looking for reliable and fast-operating applications. A good download manager that can handle all sorts and sizes of downloads with the possibility to resume interrupted downloads. One of the best options on the market is Folx download manager.

Folx 5 Download Manager

Folx  is a neatly looking app. Its clean interface has all on display in the right spots so users can easily see, understand and use. One can just paste a link to download or search criteria for searching through the torrent trackers in the input bar on the top.

The drop-down menu in the top-center part of the app window allows to choose different views: what's downloading now, currently paused downloads, scheduled tasks, currently seeding content, and completed tasks.

Folx displays information on each current task: file name, priority, the downloading progress, the speed. It is convenient to keep an eye on the speed of each download to see if for some reason it is stalling. I frequently use the start/pause button to the left of each download. And in case of Internet connection is lost, the download will always resume once the connection is back

Preference Panels

Folx  is a download manager for a reason. The management possibilities are vast, including basic possibilities like opening the preferences with cmd+.

And I know how first things first it is tempting to untick that "Send anonymous usage statistics to Eltima", but it is really anonymous at the same time helping developers improve their product and deliver a better version of it to you.


So there are lots of preferences to play with. One of the most notable is scheduling. You can schedule tasks to be started and stopped at specific times and dates. Then there is the Smart Speed feature. It lets Folx automatically adjust its activity according to other apps using the bandwidth, so that downloading doesn't prevent you from having a normal conversation on Skype for example.

All downloads can be assigned with various tags according to the type of downloaded content. It makes finding the files super easy even if you downloaded it ages ago and can't remember the exact name. But if you still remember it was a comedy, drama, work file, or whatever types you download, Folx will help you locate it in no time.

In the Torrents panel, you can select various parameters for working with torrents and torrent designation files.

The built-in torrent search helps you find torrents hosted on many trackers at a time and then choose which one to download. This way you are spared the hassle of opening torrent trackers in your browser and trying to find the optimally offered content.

Then there is also the Passwords setup. What it is useful for: if you are downloading frequently from a password protected website, you have the possibility to save the login name and password in Folx and next time you start the download from this tracker, you won't have to enter login details, Folx will automatically fill those in.

The only thing I didn't quite like is that in the case of downloading to the external drive, Folx will just say that downloading has failed if the drive happens to be disconnected at that moment.


Browser Integration
Folx offers its own browser extension. I use Chrome, so I found the Folx extension on Google Store. You can add it to your web browser so that it is much easier to initiate downloads whenever you need. I noticed that for the downloads originating from a script file instead of a proper anchor, Folx extension wasn't getting it, so I had to disable the add-on and start again.

If integrating with other Internet browsers, click on their icon in the Browsers panel in Preferences.


Compact Mode
Folx can stay pretty much invisible with its Compact Mode. It will be a tiny window that only shows one download, however, you can scroll through to see others. You can simply drop a link on it to start a new download. To switch to this mode, go to Window→Switch to Compact Mode or use the hotkey combo "ctrl-cmd-m".


Conclusion
I do recommend Folx as your all-in-one download manager and torrent client. I keep my downloads in it and it works perfectly well for me - fast and easy and stable.