Google Chrome is a very powerful browser for surfing the internet, with a thousand functions, many of which are also hidden or activated via extensions. One of the things I like least about Chrome however is the management of downloads from the internet, partly because it doesn't happen, partly because it actually has some flaws. In fact, the management of files downloaded from the Internet in Chrome is not at all inferior compared to other browsers, indeed, it has unique options that are worth discovering now together with an extension that improves the management of downloads within Chrome .
When you download a file from Chrome, it appears at the bottom of the screen in a bar that shows the file on the left while on the right there is a link to open " all downloads " which is the Chrome download management page. The page can also be opened by pressing the CTRL-J keys or from the Chrome options button. As you will notice, on this page there is a history of all the downloads made and the possibility of opening the folder where the various files have been inserted so that they can be opened quickly. There is also a search box to find the files downloaded last month and the download address, which you can click again to find the page from which the download was started.
There are a few tricks in managing an internet download with Chrome that are quite interesting. For example, you can tell Chrome to immediately open a file once the download is complete. To do this, without waiting for it to finish, just click on it in the download bar to see the message change to " X hours when the file is opened .. ". As soon as the download finishes, the file will open automatically.
If you want Chrome to always open a certain type of file after downloading, click on the down arrow next to the name of the file in the bottom bar and then press on the option "Always open files of this type". This option is very useful with Torrent files.
To put a newly downloaded file on the desktop, it is not necessary to open the folder containing it first, just press on it from Chrome and drag it to the desktop.
Obviously Chrome won't have to be full screen.
Some files are opened directly in Chrome; these are PDF documents, MP4 videos, MP3 tracks.
To download them, once opened, you can press the Ctrl + S keys.
Another option to download them is by clicking on the link with the right button and not with the left and then select " save as ".
From the download page, the one that has chrome: // downloads / as its address, you can pause the current downloads in order to resume them whenever you want. The only problem is that if you close Chrome, these will be discontinued and will not have to be re-downloaded from scratch. Fortunately, when you close Chrome, perhaps accidentally, if you are downloading, a warning appears first to confirm the closure and cancel the download.
If you are not satisfied with how Chrome manages downloads, then you can use an external program that integrates itself into Chrome as Free Download Manager or an extension.
The extension is better because it allows you to manage and control all downloads within the browser, without the need to install external programs.
The best extension, so far, is Fruumo Download Manager which has a nice download management screen, better than the standard Chrome one. Once installed, the extension adds its icon to Omnibar for easy access to the downloads and settings of the extension. File downloads can be suspended, resumed, stopped and removed, and filters can also be created to catalog downloaded files.
Desktop notifications for downloading are used to know when a download is complete, even if Chrome has been closed and the Multi-Download option allows you to download more than one file from a single page without clicking each item individually and choosing which type of download files from a page. The search bar allows you to easily find a particular item from the list of downloaded files and for images
Another extension that is preferred for simplicity is Download Manager, which puts a download management button in Chrome at the top right. This button with the down arrow is similar to that of Firefox, opens the list of ongoing and completed downloads and to manage simultaneous downloads.
With the Download Notifier extension instead you get a button to quickly access the download page and, above all, the warning function when a download is complete. Once installed, the extension will notify you of the last downloaded file with a popup on the bottom right.
