Downloading stuff has become an essential part of our lives. It’s the best way of having an offline copy of the music, video, movie, or anything else in your device’s storage so that you can watch it anytime and as many times as you want.
Not everyone can afford a blazing fast internet connection to stream music, videos, and movies right away, and that’s why they download the content of their liking.
Internet Download Manager (IDM) made our lives easier. But the worst part is that it’s not free. Then Free Download Manager (FDM) took the crown due to its “100% Free” price tag.
FDM has all the features that IDM has, like downloads grabber, accelerator, bandwidth limiter, etc. I think FDM is the best alternative to IDM (Internet Download Manager).
The tips I will share will help you make FDM fully utilize your bandwidth. That means increased speed. This guide won’t magically increase your bandwidth. You need to contact your ISP for that if your bandwidth is limiting FDM download speeds.
Table of Contents
How to make FDM download faster?
Today, I will be sharing some settings that will help you increase your download speeds in FDM. Let’s get started:
Setting 1. Keep Proxy Disabled
Free Download Manager lets you download files from the Internet via proxy servers.
Keep Proxy disabled if you have no idea what it is. Go to Settings » Network
Under the Proxy setting, select No Proxy.
Setting 2. Change Traffic Limits
If you have limited your download speed somehow or put no restriction on the upload speed, then that could be one of the reasons why Free Download Manager is slow.
In Settings, change Traffic Limits to create a custom profile. Set Unlimited for Download speed. Then set Upload speed to 1, which is the least possible value.
There are some files that consume your bandwidth by uploading the files to peers. This way, uploading will be limited.
Setting 3. Change Maximum Number of Connections
Some files rely on P2P (peer-to-peer) connections to distribute files. That means the more peers, the better the download speeds.
Change the Maximum number of connections to 10 or more. It will make your downloads faster, especially if you are downloading Torrent files.
Setting 4. Change Maximum Number of Simultaneous Downloads
Downloading a lot of items at once influences the overall bandwidth. As a result, FDM won’t utilize the full speed of your internet connection.
Change the Maximum number of simultaneous downloads to 2 or 3. That depends on how many downloads you want to keep active at a time.
Setting 5. Enable Metered Connection
Sometimes, some services or apps use your internet data in the background. Sometimes it’s your OS that keeps itself updating the background.
In both cases, Free Download Manager won’t have enough bandwidth to download your files at full speed.
To fix that, set your current Ethernet or WiFi as Metered Connection.
Setting 6. Temporarily Disable Antivirus/Firewall (not recommended)
Some antivirus software and even your PC’s firewall can sometimes interfere with FDM. That usually happens if the files you’re downloading are infected.
Though I won’t recommend turning them off, but if the files you are downloading are really important for you, then you can try to turn off antivirus and firewall temporarily and see if it helps.
I tried all of these settings on my FDM, and I was able to increase download speeds.
If you have doubts or suggestions, then feel free to share them below.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Free Download Manager (FDM) cost?
Free Download Manager is a freeware software and doesn’t require you to pay anything.
What operating systems are supported by FDM?
Currently, FDM supports Windows, macOS, Android, and Linux.
Does FDM supports downloading torrents?
Yes, Free Download Manager fully supports BitTorrent protocol and enables you to download torrents.
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Quit FDM and relaunch it…. smile
Whaat? .. I mean it works at least. 🙂
Hey Ritesh Saini ,
Great post with effective tips and settings to boost FDM. It is true that downloading has become an important part of our lives, but can be annoying sometimes if the downloading speed slows down.
Your each of the suggested steps for doing several settings are so clear, easy to understand and follow, whereas following these steps will be helpful and will boost FDM downloading speed. Doing these setting will absolutely make the downloading speed faster.
Truly helpful post and thanks for sharing.
Theoritically its all right but FDM really uses it in its engine… not sure. Its actual behaviour don’t shows so. Dont believe me.. check it out! 😉
My Wi-Fi usually downloads stuff at 1.5 Mbs/second but sometimes local problems happen and it drops to 1M and such. Today, my FDM was downloading at a 100Kbs/second and there were some local problems. After following this guide, it rose up to 600Kbs/seconds. Thank you.
I’m glad it helped you 😀
Unfortunately It did nothing for me as it’s still stuck at 2.9 Mb/s :'( I dont know what to do anymore, a 4GB download takes a while
Sometimes it’s the downloading file’s server that limits the download speed. There’s nothing much you can do in that 🙂
My internet speed is 100 mbps but idk why it always shows 1.5 Mbs/second maybe someone can help?
It depends on the download file’s server as well. Sometimes these servers restrict the bandwidth, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
My internet speed is 400mb/s and it goes at 100kb/s. Sadly this didn’t help me but at least FDM is faster than my browser.
my upload and download speed is 90mpbs but it says im downloading at 500kb/s ??
Bro, my internet is weird…I was installing windows 7 iso file (don’t ask why) and it was downloading at fairly reasonable speed in brave 12 mbps. BUT i wanted to install it on FDM… so it was downloading at 15 mbps and I was happy but it was fluctuating…
REALLY BADLY I was kind of mad at myself but I had already installed it 25% and wasn’t going to stop it there so I was working side-by-side on my project and I was still looking at the download in a while and got disappointed after seeing 0mbps or 64 kbps but suddenly. After I was done with my project I closed every chrome tab, every instance of vs code and i see instantly my download speed rose up to 30 mbps And its a shock because even when my internet works fine I only get upto 15 mbps max in downloads.