Leech: Review and Giveaway
Most of us download at least one thing per day. Some of us like the Safari download manager, but for some of us it just isn’t enough. There are some other managers, like Speed Download, but most of us don’t need all of those features. For us, there is Leech.
Leech, by Many Tricks, adds lots of functionality to a download manager without being completely cluttered. It has only a few features, but they are great features. The first thing you may notice is that, unlike other download managers, it doesn’t ask you to install a plugin. This is because it does not intercept downloads; you have to manually add a new URL.* This can be a real pain for those of us who used to use Speed Download or other download managers, but I have gotten used to it. I do only use it for big files, though, or else it would be extremely annoying.
The biggest feature of Leech (in my opinion), is its ability to stop and resume downloads at anytime, unlike the built-in manager in Safari. This is a really helpful feature, especially if you have a laptop, because you may want to put it to sleep and resume a download later. This is a feature in most download managers, but it still should be mentioned.
Leech is extremely easy to use, and the only real options that you need to set up are the preferences. There aren’t that many preferences, but they are very adequate. Some people like all the options that Speed Download has. I can easily see that, but I think you will be surprised at how little options you need to just download files.
The General tab of the preferences provides you with a few options, like where to download to, and how many downloads to do at once. The only weird option here is where the temporary files go (the temporary file for a download is a .part file). This option only determines where Leech puts those files. Of course, this file is trashed when your download is completed anyways, but it’s nice to choose whether to see it or not. You can also choose to have anywhere from 1 to 9 active downloads at once, or unlimited. Leech gives you the most common three places to download to — Downloads, Desktop and Documents — or you can choose your own location.
The Feedback tab gives you a few options for the feedback that Leech will give you. A nice preference here is to choose what happens when you drag a URL to Leech’s icon in the dock. You can have it hide (same as command-h), retreat (simply not show the window) or activate (show the window). This way, you don’t even have to see the window to download something. The other options here are very simple.
Where Leech really excels is in its multiple download support. No, this is not downloading multiple things at once, this is giving Leech a list of URLs to download. Simply go to File-Open URLS (command-O), and it will give you a text field where you give it the URLs to download! This is really great for when you get a list of URLs that you need to download from an email or in an AIM chat.
Another cool feature of Leech is the ability to see your downloads’ progress in the Dock. The amount of white in the arrow of the icon changes based on how much of a file you have downloaded.
Leech, by Many Tricks, retails for only €9.95 (compare this to other download managers). It may not have all the features of some of the rest, but it has all the features you need to download large files with speed (or slowness, because you can pause and resume downloads), style and simplicity. To me, it is well worth the buy.
Many Tricks has been very generous in giving MacApper 15 licenses to giveaway here! To enter, just comment with a feature you would like to see in Leech! The giveaway will end on June 3rd. Remember, if you don’t win, you can always buy a copy for only €9.95!
*Now in version 1.1, it does
Does it allow multiple connections for the same file? It’s a very nice trick to download things fast from capped servers, and other download managers like ugly-and-extremely-cluttered Speed Download do it.
ROLFIE
I think this kind of software has been obsoleted by new technology. Larger files (4gb+) are usually faster when downloaded by torrent. When smaller downloads fail, you just download it again, it could only save 15 minutes or so.
I know not all people have broadband connections, but even for them there are better plug-ins for firefox that do the same, but are free.
Paying for software which primary feature is it’s lack of features isn’t something i’d like to do, but some people might like the simplicity.
Nice app. But I need support for Premium Account on Rapidshare.com.
I would love to see the ability to drag a downloaded file out of Leech to a new place and it will be moved to this location. In addition it would be helpfull to save spotlight comments (for tagging purposes) from within leech.
I’d really like the ability to have several connections to the same server. Depending on where you’re downloading the file from, this can really speed up the download.
I didn’t know Leech. I love it’s simplicity!
A feature I would love to see is a generator of incremented url! It’s very useful for downloading pictures,…
It is a simple, easy-to-use down loader.
The searchable history menu is my favorite
I like Rules function. The file can be easily arranged by this function.
I’d like to see is when you’re downloading it, it has the url it came from, so if the download fails or you need to restart your computer. It will be there and you can just go back.
Seems like a very useful app for macupdate and/or versiontracker, maybe a support for both would be nice.
I would really like to see growl support, both for “Download started” and “Download finished”. By the way there already is browser integration, a menuitem in Leech called “Integrate with browser…”.
In addition to Growl notifications mentioned already support for passworded downloads using 1Password would be good too
@Gregor: At least Growl download finished notification is already there (1.1.2).
- Preferences where put login/pass for websites like rapidshare or megaupload.(Now I guess It works by the cookies?).
- Bandwith limits.
- Multiple connections.
- Allow to edit the URLs of the downloads, because sometimes, links has redirects before the real URL.
- Show bandwith in Dock Icon.
- If press the pause button, and then press “queue all”, I think the usual will be start downloads and queue the rest. But for now they are only queued. To start downloads, need right click over one file queued and “start download now” and just only works for that file, not the rest of them.
My idea is that queue button put all files queues but start downloading from the first file to all the files at the same time configured previously in preferences, the rest must be queued waiting their turn.
Note: “The giveaway will end on May 22.” This post have been posted today 27, heh.
I agree with Rolfie. It would be nice to be able to break a download down into multiple parts for faster transfers.
Growl and Cookies for logins would be great, as some already said. But does it support grouping downloads?
This would be great, because in for example Transmission I let my downloads remain in groups so I can find the torrents later and send them to my friends if they want to download the same thing.
I would like the ability to “subscribe” to a URL and be notified when a new download is ready. Sort of an RSS notified download type option.
More growl support.
It would be nice to support premium accounts on sites like rapidshare.com; filefactory.com; megashares.com, etc.
Leech seems like a great app. Simple and functional.
What I’d like to see is some good integration with Safari. I wonder if it’s hard to hack Safari into using this instead of it’s usual download manager.
I’d like to see it with multiple connections and download interception (if the user wants it)…
Very nice little app!
It would be really useful if Leach could handle “url patterns”, like: http://example.com/files/image_1-15.jpg or http://example.com/files/file.{pdf,jpg}
I’d like to see it sort my different downloads into folders, the way Hazel does.
a bandwith capper like resrict ten gigs of downloads and maybe watch your internet activty as well as downloads
I’ve been a long time fan of Speed Download but this seems like something more up my ally. I don’t use half of the functions in speed download and it can be rather hard to configure. There are a couple of things that SD has that would be nice to see here. Intercepting certain types of files and not others would be a nice touch and the ability to add sensitive severs. Also iTunes integration would be helpful for some people.
It wasn’t mentioned in the review but this program now has FlashGot integration. Behold a competitor for Speed Download.
I would love to see Leech implement an adjustable bandwidth cap on the program. I’ve yet to find a program that can do it for me, and I need it. I always run 4 downloads together to maximize my speed, but I don’t always want my downloads to hog the bandwidth.
I’d love to be able to tell Leech to limit the speed to say 500kb/s leaving me and others in the house with enough to still browse. Other than that, I love the simplicity that Leech has compared to Speed Download. A+ program guys. I’m loving the demo.
Some people mentioned allowing multiple connections, but if that gets implemented I’d want it to be an option. Whenever I have used multiple connections my files come in corrupt.
I like the DownThemAll extension for Firefox. Quick, easy install, and works great. Oh and it’s free. It doesn’t intercept your download links, either, it simply adds a new item in the context menu so you can download using DownThemAll or the regular download method.
Bandwith cap has already been suggested a couple of times, and I completely agree. It’s important especially for slower connections and bigger downloads.
“The biggest feature of Leech (in my opinion), is its ability to stop and resume downloads at anytime, unlike the built-in manager in Safari”
I continue my downloads using Safari’s download manager all the time. Just double click the “.download” file and it resumes from the last point of your downloads.
Display options for the dock icon would be nice, including but not limited to download speed, number of current downloads, total downloads in que, etc..
I thought the idea was to keep it slim – unlike the bloated Speed Download. How about NO new features?
I agree with maybe some dock-badge type features.
My feature request is to be able to use the services menu to highlight and send a URL to Leech directly from within any web browser.
I already own a copy of Leech, and I can’t seem to get it to intercept downloads with Firefox 3. I might be doing something wrong. I am not using standard SIMBL, I use Plugin Suite instead, but it shouldn’t make a difference.
I would like to see more defined options, and the ability to run applescripts etc upon download of certain filetypes etc.
All in all, I am excited about a SIMPLE download manager for Mac. The options thus far have been absolutely terrible.
I would like to see a solution to get Leech out of the way more. For example, allow it to run in the menu bar only or let it spawn a background process that stays open even if the GUI is closed (similar to the functionality in Linkinus IRC client).
Like many other people i think multiple connection are a must-have, two others great features would be: ‘regular expression in url’ and ‘automatic management when download finishes’ ( for example copy the file there, unzip it, and so on).
One neat feature would be a cool-looking menubar item showing bandwith usage.
I’d like it if you could download all links on a page, or filter out certain types of links – maybe download all photos on a page, or something like that.
Perhaps add support for additional protocols like ftp, sftp, webdav, or Amazon s3. A lot of the same protocols as ftp clients except without browsing the server (just know direct link).
The ability to turn on when one web browser is opened, and quit when the last web browser open is quit.
automatic awesomeness.
I have speed download and find it to be amazing the thing works great, I would highly recommend it to any one with the money but if you don’t this looks good.
@rmaspero and everyone: If you own Speed Download, you can get Leech for 30% off. That’s a bargain!
I’d like to see an optional minimalist interface. Kinda annoying when every time you download something, an icon pops up in your dock only to disappear a few moments later. I’d like to see it run just from the menu bar.
I’d really love it if it can search for multiple download sites or torrent for a single file I’m downloading and use all those sources automatically.
This seems nice, too bad it only works on Leopard.
And it seemed to so handy, too. Well, I’d say support
for Tiger as a feature would be nice, but it not being
there right now, it kinda defeats the whole point
of posting a feature to get a licence, as I have Tiger.
As was stated in the article I would like if it had some sort of a plugin for intercepting files. The other would be an easy way to download QuickTime files (.mov, mp3, etc) files from a web page. Usually their URLs can be easily found in the activity window, but having that in the download manager could be very useful. I often run into this problem at work when getting source files from approval sites.
Rapidshare premium
Adding multiple URLs at once
simple good, great app!!
I’m a speed download guy but willing to try something simpler
I think a rename after downloading feature would be handy.
I’d love a Hazel-like set of rules, where the files can be moved depending on their URLs.
Fingers crossed…
I’m still running Tiger, so I couldn’t give it a spin, but I’ll be on Leopard as soon as I upgrade my pbg4.
But “the must have feature” that I’ve being looking for in a real simple and cute download manager is a way to tag the file being downloaded or already on the download history list.
An option to pre-set tags for the next download or even better, a popup inviting you to choose the new tags (from a list of recent used ones or some words derived from the URL), all of this coming up just with a click on Safari.
Tags being quickly set when you are downloading, and Hazel working on the background, that is the heaven I’m asking Leech a ticket for.
I would like to see Leech be able to segment a file and try to download segments simultaneously. This has been successful in increasing overall download speed with other download managers.
This is simple and elegant downloader.
If it is possible, I want function that can be downloaded all by extraction of URL.
It is an easy to use application.
The function to download by dividing is necessary to improve the download speed. And, I want this function.
A feature I would love to see is a function that download the movie such as YouTube.
I think that a lot of people need this function.
The function that shuts down after download ends is convenient. but, I want that sleep after download ends.
When the batch download function of the sequential number file is provided, it is more useful.
A feature I would love to see is a function that watching clipboard and automatically download.
For instance, the targeted extension is registered, and when URL that ends by the registered extension is copied, file download will automatically start.
I think that it becomes better when corresponding to the protocols other than http, like ftp, sftp, WebDAB…
I want function that can be easily downloaded from uploaders such as RapidShare, Megaupload, and Slil.
A feature I would love to see is a function that can be downloaded by switching the proxy server.
When it is possible to set it besides the proxy setting offered with OS, it is ideal.
I would like to see a function that sound and movie file can be easily downloaded at service named YouTube, Google video, Myspace etc.
hmm, seems minimalist – whats the average speed you’re getting on your downloads?
i would like to see a speed limit option
Wow this application is awesome.
I’d love to have a video module to automatically download videos from Vimeo, Flickr, Youtube, Dailymotion… Maybe adding Torrent support could be great too so I don’t have to use 2 apps at the same time.
it is a download manager as all would have to be, simple and direct to the point, and the best feature inmym opinion is the price!
Wonderful Software!
=
Camino has all of Leeches download features built-in.
If it could mount dmgs when you download them, THAT would be a cool feature.
I would love a license though!
support for some premium file sharing sites would be a nice addition to this simple app!
Automatic downloading would be a great feature to implement. Manually inputting the files would be a major pain.
mmm… bandwidth limiter/cap?
This one has a potential and that’s why I want it.
Multiple urls at once would really make this killer!
how about a feature, that uses multiple client to download a file like many download managers do. this can be pretty helpful
sry for the double entry, but I remembered sth i missed when i tested it a while back
would there be a way to import cookies? because when I click a link in safari and leech starts the download it would not work because I wasn’t logged in.
[...] week I reviewed Leech, the great file compression and archiving app. Many Tricks was nice enough to give us 15 licenses [...]
I would like the ability to not only pause and resume, but to stop a download completely and recover from at or near where execution was interrupted. Sometimes a program crashes, power goes down, or you just have to quit one process to solve a problem that can’t be solved by any other means. Safari’s downloader is seldom ever forgiving, almost always making you start a download over from the beginning whereas filesharing services, used mostly for pirating software, seem to always start up again from where they last left off, no matter why they were interrupted. It would be nice to have this feature in a legitimate downloader.
I would really like pause and resume….
I would like to see integration with Safari to replace the current download manager.