DOWNLOAD HUGE FILES WITHOUT SLOWING YOUR COMPUTER
And share the load between PCS
Downloading large files is an intensive process. Unless you live close to a telephone exchange or kerbside broadband cabinet, it can slow your browsing to a crawl and, on older PCS, consume so many resources that anything else you’re trying to do grinds to a halt.
Thankfully, overcoming such problems is fairly straightforward if you use a download manager to schedule your downloads to a more convenient time. Setting them to only occur when you know you won’t be using your PC means all of its resources can be devoted to whatever you’re using it for right now.
Better still, for anyone signed up to a metered broadband deal with uncapped overnight browsing, using a download manager means you can conserve your precious daytime bandwidth by setting downloads to only take place during your unrestricted hours.
Here, we’re using Xtreme Download Manager (XDM), free from www.snipca. com/30184. As well as letting you schedule downloads, it can speed them up by splitting the source file into multiple smaller parts – and even resume downloads that have been interrupted.
Scroll down to the table with download links, then click the one beside Windows. When asked whether you want to save or run Xtreme Download Manager, click Run and, when Windows asks you to confirm that you’re happy to run an application from an unknown developer, click Yes.
Set up Xtreme Download 1 Manager Xtreme Download Manager
can integrate with your browser to schedule all future downloads. If you’re happy to do this, click the ‘Install addon’ button below the name of your browser on the first screen, as shown in the screenshot right. There are add-ons (also known as extensions) for Firefox, Opera and Chrome.
You can also add an extension to Edge, but not automatically. If you use Edge, click the Instructions link below its name on the same screen and follow the directions. Microsoft has recently announced that it will use the same
Chromium source code as Google in future versions of Edge, at which point you’ll be able to install the add-on instantly.
If you prefer not to integrate XDM with your browser, you can skip this step - simply click the left arrow beside
‘Browser monitoring’.
XDM is a good example of a set-andforget program: once you set it up, you can leave it to manage itself. Click the cog on the toolbar at the bottom of the XDM window, followed by ‘View settings’ in the ‘Scheduler settings’ section. Leave the
‘Queue name’ as ‘Default queue’, but tick both boxes beside ‘Start queue at’ and ‘Stop queue at’, then set their times to 01:00AM and 07:00AM respectively (see screenshot bottom right of page 35).
Below this, tick the box beside Daily, which simultaneously clears the box beside ‘Once at’. You’ve now set XDM to check the list of files you’ve asked it to download between 1am and 7am each day, and retrieve any saved links it finds.
Click the left arrow beside ‘Queue and scheduler’ to close the overlay screen. You can now start adding downloads to your queue.
Schedule your first 2 downloads
The next time you need to download a large file that you want to process overnight, find the download link in your browser and add it to XDM. We’ll use the download link for the free Gimp image editor as an example.
Visit www.gimp.org and click the large Download button at the top of the page. At the time of writing, this says ‘Download 2.10.8’, but the version number will have changed if an updated edition has been posted by the time you read this.
On the following page, right-click the orange button labelled ‘Download GIMP 2.10.8 directly’ and select ‘Copy link address’ (in Chrome), ‘Copy Link Location’ (in Firefox), or ‘Copy link’ (Edge). Now switch to XDM and click the ‘+’ button on the toolbar at the bottom of the window. XDM should automatically fill the box that pops up from the Windows clipboard but, if it doesn’t, click in the Address box and paste the
link that you copied.
If you’d like to save the file to anywhere other than your Downloads folder then, in the box below, beside File, click the folder icon and choose where you’d like to save it.
Next, rather than clicking Download Now, click the ‘More…’ button, hover your mouse over Download Later, then pick ‘Default queue’ in the menu (see screenshot below). This lines up the download to happen between 1am and 7am the following morning, so it will be ready for you to unzip and install when you next sit down at your PC.
You can continue adding download links in this manner and they will each be added to the end of the queue and downloaded in sequence.
Reduce the burden of 3 Windows updates
It’s vital that you keep Windows fully updated to avoid falling prey to malware, which is why Windows Update is given total freedom to download fixes whenever required, regardless of their size.
This can slow down old PCS, so you might want to restrict automatic downloads to times when you’re less likely to be using your computer. You can download and apply security fixes manually, but this requires direct intervention on your part. This means you’ll have to either instigate them while you’re at your PC (which defeats the object of what we’re trying to achieve here) or set them to download just before you head to bed. This isn’t ideal, as using computer screens immediately before hitting the hay can interrupt your sleep cycle.
You therefore need to work with, rather than against, Windows, which isn’t as hard as you might imagine. Although there’s no way to explicitly define the slot during which it downloads updates, you can fudge it by claiming you’re using a metered internet connection. Most metered deals cap the amount of data you’re allowed to use during peak hours, but lift any restriction overnight, which is when Windows Update will kick in.
Open the Windows menu and click Settings (the cog icon). Click Network & Internet, then Wifi in the sidebar. Your current network will appear at