# Download accelerators

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 19, 2002, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605 "2002-11-19T20:20:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605/1 "2002-11-19T20:20:04Z")

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I hate any piece of software that moves onto your system and thinks it owns the place, buries itself into the registry, changes file associations without prompting, and puts icons wherever it damn pleases. If it takes more than three steps to uninstall, its poorly written software IMO. Gozilla is a very handy app that suffers from this problem, and I’ve had such problems with it in the past that I wouldn’t dare sully my freshly reformatted hard drive with it. So, can anyone recommend a good freeware download accelerator that has a small footprint and works relatively transparently? I’ve heard Netpumper mentioned, is that one any good?

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**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605/2 "2002-11-19T20:28:18Z")

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I use flashget. I find it works pretty well.

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**Author:** ![typhoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed8c4c/32.png) [@typhoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typhoon)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605/3 "2002-11-20T01:20:18Z")

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GetRight works great and uninstalls cleanly. Nothing particularly obnoxious about it that I can remember.

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**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605/4 "2002-11-20T01:41:21Z")

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I like Download Accelerator Plus. I won’t vouch for its ability to actually accelerate downloads, but of course I’m on dialup. It resumes downloads fairly well though, and doesn’t seem to embed itself in the system very deeply.

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**Author:** ![Toddly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Toddly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toddly)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605/5 "2002-11-20T05:03:58Z")

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I used to use Get Right but found out that it is spyware. I never thought these things worked very well anyways if you are on a dial up. The resumable feature is probably the best part of the program. You might try RegCleaner for scouring your registry every once in a while.

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**Author:** ![typhoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed8c4c/32.png) [@typhoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typhoon)\
**Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/download-accelerators/137605/6 "2002-11-20T06:22:04Z")

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Versions of GetRight post-4.3 (after April 2001) contain no spyware.