Ever wanted to find out how to get those fat files faster?
Most of the files I download on my phone are pretty small, usually only a couple of MB. But, come the end of the month, when I have an excess of download quota burning a hole in my virtual pocket, I will go out into the digital wilds and hunt down some big game. Perhaps it’s a video or three, or perhaps it’s that 5-hour DJ set I went to the other week. Whatever the case, it’s often a lesson in frustration watching the megabytes slowly tick away.
There are a number of download accelerators out there, of which I've tried a few. Out of those that I tried, AndroGET came out as my favourite, as it seemed to give the best boost in speed.
Obviously, the first thing to do is mosey on over to the Google Play and download
AndroGET. It’s free (ad-supported), but a ‘pro’ version is also available
.
In addition to download acceleration, AndroGET supports files up to 2GB in size; queuing of downloads; pause, stop, resume, and retry; file overwrite or rename; HTTP/S proxy support; basic HTTP authentication (username and password); Dropbox download support; and visual notifications.
The next thing to do is set up the download location within AndroGET. Open it up, and click on the little gear up on the top right of the screen. There isn’t the option to create a new folder, so you’ll need to use your preferred file manager to do this before setting the download directory.
The ‘Simple’ settings screen is also the place to set the number of simultaneous downloads allowed – downloads above this number will be queued. The ‘Advanced’ screen will let you set a proxy, and the number of simultaneous connections per download. The number of simultaneous connections breaks up the download into chunks that download in parallel to each other, resulting in the boost in speed. I found the default of 8 to be adequate, but feel free to experiment.
To download a file from your browser of choice, simply press and hold the download link, and click ‘Share Link’ (<Nerdgush> The ‘Share via’ menu is probably my favourite feature of Android </Nerdgush>) and then choose AndroGET.
An AndroGET popup (plus an ad) will appear, allowing you to type in your HTTP authentication credentials, if required. If not, just hit the big download button, and watch your download blast away.
Alternatively, you can open AndroGET, click the menu button, and ‘Add New’ and then type or paste a URL into the popup.
