Orbit downloader 2.8.16 review

By: Codrut Nistor, Editor, Software Reviews
Published: 8th September 2009

There's no easy way to do things for people who seem to come from another planet, that's something you have to experience yourself to believe. For example, it took me half an hour last night to explain how to crop a damn picture to a friend of mine! No, he wasn't joking, he simply seems to have landed from another planet... and when I think he has been using computers AND IrfanView for more than a year already, I really start to believe that a computer driving license should be introduced all around the world!

Obviously, yesterday it wasn't the only day when I had to face such a tragicomical computer-related problem, and probably another top problem is downloading. When I was asked "How do I get something off YouTube?" and I answered "Just get YouTube Downloader HD!" I didn't get out of it easy, either. No, I won't tell you what happened and how much time did we waste, because I want to get to my subject, and that is another music, video and file downloader for all, namely Orbit Downloader.

While this one should be very easy to use, I am sure there will be people who won't find their ways around it, and all I can hope is to show them a few interesting tricks and answer some questions they may come up with. No matter how hard it may seem to use a program, remember this: as long as you're willing to learn, you already got through the hardest part of the journey!

Setup

I am sure that anyone will download the 2.2 MB setup package with ease, but you should think a little if you really need such a program. After all, if you're still stuck using a modem connection, downloading high quality multimedia content may still be a dream you can't reach... as long as you're not willing to wait, wait, and then wait some more until a download gets to that final bit of information. I am not saying that you shouldn't try the program, just don't expect any miracle from it, all right?

I am currently facing the first setup screen of the version 2.8.16, and the text in the window here says you have to exit IE and Firefox before installing Orbit Downloader. Be sure to close them manually before pressing that Next button, because the setup program will close them automatically anyway (that option is checked by default, see first image), and you may lose some precious data...

After that, everything's natural - you have to agree with the terms of the end-user license agreement, select the destination location, the Start Menu folder, mess with the additional options available (there are quite a few to choose from, as you can see in the second image at the end of the review; just for the record, I didn't check any of that boxes), enable Grab Pro... or not, and then one last Next button, before pressing the long-awaited Finish one, starting up the program, and moving on to the next section of our review here...

Interface

Orbit Downloader looks... OK. Really, I can't say it looks bad, but there's no trace of eye candy to enjoy here, either, and since the interface is well organized, I can't say anything better than OK. After all, it's more about getting the job done than looking good with some categories of programs, and download managers should do more and show less, in my opinion.

If you ever used a download manager before, Orbit Downloader will be very easy to use, but even those completely new to such programs shouldn't have any special problems using it. All you have to do is spare a few minutes to explore the main window and the options available in the menus of this program, and maybe even check the documentation - despite the fact Orbit Downloader doesn't have any Help file coming with it, there's a well done FAQ page available online to help you get started, so be sure to check it out!

Features

The funny part about Orbit Downloader's features is that the most interesting parts have been left to Grab Pro, so you won't be able to simply paste a YouTube link and download the video using the program. Of course you can paste the link - I did it and I had no problem with that part, but I ended up with a useless HTML file on my drive, instead of the video I wanted... :|

Regarding those features, I must confess I watched the tutorial page on downloading YouTube videos, and I really felt like sleeping. Come on, guys! For such a popular download program, all those steps required to download YouTube media are simply TOO MANY! Thanks, but I'll pass all those multimedia downloading features - back to the program itself, now!

Apart from being able to add simple and batch downloads, you can also use Orbit Downloader to download various content using .metalink files, allowing a significant speed gain by using multiple resources to simultaneously download file chunks.

To make things easier for those who really download a lot of stuff, Orbit Downloader has download lists import/export capabilities, using its own .orb file format, if we can put it that way, since we're talking about nothing more than a plain text file containing a list of URLs...

A positive fact is that Orbit Downloader comes with a lot of translations, so if your English sucks, that doesn't mean you won't be able to use this program. Currently, that long list of supported languages includes Afrikaans, Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Turkish, and a bunch of others, with language updates being released pretty often. Sweet!

Any serious download manager can't get out in the open without monitoring capabilities, and Orbit Downloader has them all - clipboard and browser monitoring, as well as Grab++, a tool that should help you download media from YouTube and other similar sites. I said "should help" simply because I did everything I should have... and I couldn't get the YouTube videos I tried to get, that's all.

These being said, I'll move on and try to give you a few tips and tricks that should help you turn downloads from nightmare to that heavenly pleasure I consider to be the "fire & forget" approach...

Tips & Tricks

1. Before anything else, be sure to set your antivirus protection options. To do that, just open the Tools menu and click on Anti-Virus Protection Setup...; once you do that, check to have downloaded files scanned and browse to locate the antivirus you're currently using.

2. If you're downloading files from password protected sites, be sure to take advantage of the goodies offered by the Site Manager, located in the Preferences window.

3. If you have a good connection, but speed is not what you were expecting, try to increase connection limit by going to the Others section in the Preferences window and clicking the only button available... but beware: it seems this option doesn't work in Windows XP SP3!

Strengths

Orbit Downloader is free, fairly easy to use, and it uses a very low amount of system resources, so I am sure those having really old computers shouldn't have any problems using it, apart from the problems I'll mention below...

Weaknesses

If there's one thing I hate more than bugs, is programs that make easy things hard, and Orbit Downloader is one of them. I have no doubts that people are downloading YouTube videos and music using it, but I wasn't able to do it, and I am not an idiot. Since there are plenty of other freebies able to do that, I simply find no use to Orbit Downloader's features that should make it stand out of the crowd.

Final Thoughts

Please don't get me wrong - Orbit Downloader is a good download manager, but FDM is much better, and when it comes to downloading various media streams from sites like Vimeo, YouTube, Yahoo! Music and so on, there are also plenty of better options that are much easier to use... so if you're already using them, there's nothing really new to get from Orbit Downloader, but trying it won't hurt.

In the end, it's not like you have to pay anything for trying this, apart from paying some attention to a program that you may recommend to your friends who want an all-in-one solution and are willing to spend some time to make things work...