Today I was instructed by my university to download SPSS from their server so I could complete a practical statistics activity for my course.
However when I came to download the installation I found that it was 775 Mb in size and would only download at a rate of 5 Kb/s to 15 Kb/s. This was going to take hours, if not days, and the first attempt to leave it overnight resulted in an error and failed download. I found a way to increase the speed to 130 Kb/s which enabled me to download SPSS in around an hour!
I recalled how in the 2000s we tackled the problem of large files over very slow connections by using download management software. Much of this software was full of malware but I managed to find one which seemed reliable and free of nuisance.
Free Download Manager is 100% free (rather than a demo) and contains no malware. It does the job well by making several simultaneous connections with the server providing the file. Because I was able to make multiple connections I could download the file in 29 parts concurrently. The software stitches these together and the result is your large file arrives much quicker! The software also supports resuming so if your connection drops out it can pick up from where it left off without having to restart.
