Downlaod manager that reads CGI scripts?

[Howard Schwartz]

I am currently using Star download manager which integrates with firefox.
It shares a deficiency of other managers:

Many websites, do not provide a URL that includes a path to the
file to download such as:

http://www.somesite/downloads/somefile.zip

Instead when you click download a CGI script is started which
delivers the file's data to your webbrowser, perhaps so they
can conceal with location of their actual download directory.
I think this may be a sample:

http://wizcleaner.free.fr/'countme.php?id=wizcleaner.exe'

Most download managers will not run java programs, javascripts,
or cgi scripts to download a file. Thus either you must click
and click for several pages, till you get to one with a
real URL, or your your download manager kicks in only
when the site starts sending data from whereever.

Any download managers that can actually download by running
scripts? Even ones that borrow the browser's java virtual
machine etc. would be fine.

 

[Thorsten Duhn]

Hello,

I am currently using Star download manager which integrates
with firefox. It shares a deficiency of other managers:

Many websites, do not provide a URL that includes a path to the
file to download such as:

http://www.somesite/downloads/somefile.zip

Instead when you click download a CGI script is started which
delivers the file's data to your webbrowser, perhaps so they
can conceal with location of their actual download directory.
I think this may be a sample:

http://wizcleaner.free.fr/'countme.php?id=wizcleaner.exe'

Most download managers will not run java programs, javascripts,
or cgi scripts to download a file. Thus either you must click
and click for several pages, till you get to one with a
real URL, or your your download manager kicks in only
when the site starts sending data from whereever.

That's not completelly correct this way. There is a difference
between server and client side scripting. Java and JavaScript are
interpreted by the browser, and I don't know any download manager
that also does this. But server side scripts (CGI/PHP/ASP/...)
deliver from server, usually html pages, but also binary data.
Any app, also any download manager, should be able to download
this *OR* the script is faulty. Then there may be apps, that
can handle some faulty script better than other, like IE often
decides what filetype the delivered content is using the file
names extension (.txt, .html, .exe) while it should decide on
a value called "mime-type", which should be delivered along
with the content from the web server (especially by the script,
so this is something, where errors in server side scripts can
occur).

Another problem is, that the browser may not be able to guess
the content a link will deliver based on the url. A static url
(like your first example) can be scanned like in file system
using the file extension, urls for dynamic content often have
various parameters sent along with the static url (the stuff
after the "?"), so often it is not possible for the browser
to decide passing this url to the download manager. I can't
guess a good solution to this, something like prefetching may
slowdown surfing a lot.

Any download managers that can actually download by running
scripts? Even ones that borrow the browser's java virtual
machine etc. would be fine.

I don't know any, that works with Java/JavaScript. But as an
alternative to Stardownloader I have "Free Download Manager"
on my agenda to test (which integrates into Firefox using
Flashgot), but have not found time to yet.

Free Download Manager
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
http://www.flashgot.net/

Regards,
Thorsten

 

[Thorsten Duhn]

Addition:

Java and JavaScript are
interpreted by the browser, and I don't know any download manager
that also does this.

.... and there are good reasons for this, because this scripts
mostly rely on informations from the environment (browser instance
i.e.) or user interaction, which the download manager cannot
recreate that easy.

Regards,
Thorsten

 

[Thorkild Dalsgaard]

Any download managers that can actually download by running
scripts?

Perhaps NetTransport could help you a bit:
http://freeware.web2001.cz/
locate and download
Download Net Transport last freeware version 1.87 (1474 kB)

Advanced Example of using nettransport:
http://groups.google.dk/[email protected]&rnum=1

Regards
Thorkild Dalsgaard

 

[Phoenix]

I am currently using Star download manager which integrates with firefox.
It shares a deficiency of other managers:
Many websites, do not provide a URL that includes a path to the
file to download such as: xxx.

The way I get round this is to use Opera as my browser, once the download
starts, and Opera's download page displays, you can see the true URL and
paste it into your DLM.

 

[kenneth marken]

I am currently using Star download manager which integrates with firefox.
It shares a deficiency of other managers:
Many websites, do not provide a URL that includes a path to the
file to download such as: xxx.

The way I get round this is to use Opera as my browser, once the download
starts, and Opera's download page displays, you can see the true URL and
paste it into your DLM.

or just use firefox with the flashgot extention. as it uses the internal
firefox download dialog it can grab any and all downloads. alltho you
may run into problems with refer based blocks, i dont realy know.

allso, why use a downloadmanger in opera? about the only thing the
internal opera downloader dont support is acceleration and thats often
looked at as bad form at sites as they often have download limits for a
reason.

 

[Howard Schwartz]

I had lots of trouble with free download manager, in part because
I am running the old win95. After finally getting and satisfying this
manager's particular Dll needs, I now can launch the manager, but
when I try to fetch anything with it, nothing happens, and there
are no error messages, not even in my kerio firewall filter log.

So I gave un trying to make this one work.

 

[David]

I had lots of trouble with free download manager, in part because
I am running the old win95. After finally getting and satisfying this
manager's particular Dll needs, I now can launch the manager, but
when I try to fetch anything with it, nothing happens, and there
are no error messages, not even in my kerio firewall filter log.

So I gave un trying to make this one work.

Try ditching Kerio. It interfered with every program that tried to
launch another application on my machine.