Download Ninja review.

Product name
Download Ninja
Pros
  • Nice UI. I love it.
    More options than IDM.
    Extremely fast.
    Free.
    Amazing media downloader.
CONS
Download Location and adding categories are painful. Could be improved
Cannot drag-and-drop downloaded files directly from the UI, like IDM.
Download Locations could be optimized a lot.
BOTTOM LINE
I am giving it five stars regardless of its flaws. I know they'll be fixed. And best of all, it's free! A highly recommended download manager.

NullPointerException

Level 12
Thread author
Verified
Aug 25, 2014
580
"Software is like wine. It's better when it's free. And when it is delivered fast. Nobody likes to wait. Not even programmers like to wait."

I am currently downloading a file with it while writing the review. It's an amazing software.

Download Ninja was first recommended to me by a fellow MT member to me. I decided to dump my old, cracked IDM and give a try to the open-source(?), free download manager. Now, as a computer scientist, I really thought that a decent download manager cannot be free. Or at least, adware-free.

Download Ninja proved me wrong. in a good way.

I was first impressed by the web design. Very well done. And then, as I installed Download Ninja, I expected adware and 'offers'. Fortunately, the installer was free of them. Now ; I did want to test its capabilities. I was quite surprised I got the max off my broadband. A 500 MB file in two hours is quite satisfactory for a Time Warner user.

Aside from my slow internet connection; I did love the speed. IDM gave me quite a bit of performance hit. While Ninja Downloader used only a few MB of RAM and even few processes and threads. 53MB and 2 processes is quite light in my opinion.

Its download-pickup is excellent. My (cracked) IDM could really, find no downloads and my browser would instead download them. I understand it's probably the altered behavior, but really, Download Ninja hasn't missed any file I've thrown at it yet. It's excellent.

What it could improve?

It could improve a lot. I didn't really like how it keeps the track of downloads. And I'm greeted by the annoying "slider" UI thing. Although I can disable the 'slider' UI, I cannot really do much for the track of the downloads. For example, if I want to download a mod for a particular game like Fallout, I'll need wait for Download Ninja to pick up download (which it does quite fast), and then select the category. And if I am downloading a, let's say, Database Backup which I need to be in a separate folder in the E disk, I'll need to go through a quite lengthy process just to get everything up and running. And even that sometimes doesn't work and the download always appears to be in C:/users/Me/downloads/Compressed. It could improve that

It could really, have a drag-and-drop button like IDM. When the "Download Complete" box appears, my file is, as I've already said, in the C disk, which takes up quite a bit of space. Then I need to open the folder and drop it manually to the disk E. That takes time and is unnecessary.

But really. It is an excellent software. I cannot just knock off one or half star for the few annoying but minor flaws. I retain its 5 star rating. Although some users might say there are better alternatives, just as for some people that the 'best' antivirus is their favorite antivirus, my 'best' download manager is my favorite download manager. :)
 

jackuars

Level 27
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jul 2, 2014
1,688
Download Ninja proved me wrong. in a good way.

While Ninja Downloader used only a few MB of RAM and even few processes and threads. 53MB and 2 processes is quite light in my opinion.
Download Ninja is the heaviest download manager that I've tested among 10 download managers, and which has the largest installer size 15MB. While it took 56MB RAM in idle state which is the heaviest of any, it took 81MB when downloading.

What it could improve?

It could improve a lot. I didn't really like how it keeps the track of downloads. And I'm greeted by the annoying "slider" UI thing. Although I can disable the 'slider' UI, I cannot really do much for the track of the downloads. For example, if I want to download a mod for a particular game like Fallout, I'll need wait for Download Ninja to pick up download (which it does quite fast), and then select the category. And if I am downloading a, let's say, Database Backup which I need to be in a separate folder in the E disk, I'll need to go through a quite lengthy process just to get everything up and running. And even that sometimes doesn't work and the download always appears to be in C:/users/Me/downloads/Compressed. It could improve that

Haven't you tried setting up categories to have more control over default download locations?

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It could really, have a drag-and-drop button like IDM. When the "Download Complete" box appears, my file is, as I've already said, in the C disk, which takes up quite a bit of space. Then I need to open the folder and drop it manually to the disk E. That takes time and is unnecessary.

But really. It is an excellent software. I cannot just knock off one or half star for the few annoying but minor flaws. I retain its 5 star rating. Although some users might say there are better alternatives, just as for some people that the 'best' antivirus is their favorite antivirus, my 'best' download manager is my favorite download manager. :)

Although DN is an excellent piece of software, I prefer EagleGet more because of it's 3 way media download technique, that's present in no other download manager, even IDM. :p

a) Using the download button on browser like the one present in IDM
b) Using the video sniffer (url sniffing technique) like the one present in XDM
c) Using media grabber (url parsing technique) like the one present in Download Ninja
 
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