[tweetmeme] Way back, before SA was even formally launched, I did a download manager shootout. Looking through the article, two things go through my mind. First, what the hell was I thinking, with those totally useless screenshots. And second, a year and a half later, nothing had changed in terms of the options available. Through this time I did change my conclusion. I was a Speed Download user. — This part was written before I knew of the release of Leech 2. It’s past March 31st now, and Leech 2 has been released.

Before I go any further, here’s what I’m looking for in a download manager. A download manager is crucial to me because I need to be able to resume downloads. My internet connection is not capable of downloading a 500MB OS X update at one go. Second, it needs to integrate with the browser so I can effortlessly queue downloads. And third, it needs to work around my whims and fancies, that is, I should be able to automatically exclude certain file types, and be able to turn off that integration without any effort. And finally, it needs to look and feel like Safari’s simple download window.

Leech 1.x was a seemingly good download manager, with a brilliant minimal user interface, but can’t resume downloads well. So I was forced to using Speed Download, with its cluttered UI and crashy behaviour [Update: It's highly possible that this crashy behaviour was isolated to my system; for which I didn't contact their support team]. Things weren’t all bad however. I removed as much UI as I could keeping the view clean and simple—almost Safari like—but the crashing issue was still prevailant. Speed Download was also difficult to work with when it came to downloading files from servers that didn’t allow download managers, or if it’s just a 10kb file and you’d rather not have your download manager launch to get that. You didn’t have control other than in the Speed Download settings, which only took effect after you restarted the browser.

This is as minimal as Speed Download gets

Leech 2 from Many Tricks landed on the 31st of March, and in the two days I’ve been using it I can safely say it’s the perfect download manager, and I couldn’t ask for more. Many Tricks have taken what they had, and greatly improved upon its feature-set and stability, while still maintaining its simplicity.

First things first, how reliable is it? While I’ve only used the app for about two days, I put it through some stress tests. Leech effortlessly picked up almost all downloads from Safari. I paused and resumed dozens, I quit the app midway, restarted my Mac, several times. Leech managed to resume every one of those downloads. It didn’t manage to resume YouTube downloads, but that’s understandable, the server doesn’t allow it. It also couldn’t recover if I force quit the app—unlike Speed Download—so if for some reason the app itself crashes midway, your download will resume from its last safe point. In my precious experience with Leech, I’ve found it’s a very stable app by itself, so I don’t see such a scenario presenting itself very often.

What about controlling the integration? Leech has a list of sites you want to exclude, as well as a list of extensions you don’t want it to intercept. Editing this list produces instant results, so you don’t have to restart your browser for changes to take place. You can also prevent all interception with one click, by temporarily disabling Leech in the Safari menubar.

Aside from this, Leech comes with a lot of other features; features I don’t use, but you might find interesting. You can drag in multiple downloads, as a list, or comma separated values, both of which I did not try. Leech also has a very simple download rules system. Just enter the websites and extensions, downloads folder, and if you want, an action, after which Leech automatically takes care of it. Brilliant implementation, and so simple to understand. There’s just one complaint I have about the app, and that’s the god-awful dock icon. It tries to do too much, and ends up looking like a cluttered mess. Perhaps there’s a way to disable it.

With Leech 2, Many Tricks has really understood the needs of a Mac user. Mac users don’t care about features; they care about how it works. Leech stays out of your way—dock icon aside—almost imitating the Safari’s download manager in the way it looks and behaves. But underlying all that is really powerful engine, that has almost every feature one could want in a download manager. And that’s the way every Mac application should be. I don’t assume it’s right for everyone, and it’s up to you to decide whether the feature-set makes sense for you (e.g., no Chrome support yet, no support for file sharing sites like Rapidshare.). Try it out, and if you like it, it’s $14 a pop.