Introduction
(If you know what a download manager is, skip this paragraph)
GetSmart is a download manager ( a software which is responsible of downloading files). If you're not using one of those, you should know that today's web browsers don't handle downloads well. Download managers, will basically allow you to resume downloads if they have been stopped from any reason, schedule downloads to be done on a specific time, and some will even connect automatically to the Internet. If you're downloading files using your web browser - don't. Get a download manager ASAP.
GetSmart is much more than a download manager. It will make your browsing faster and easier and will do much more. Even if you're not into downloading big files keep on reading.
This article will mainly describe only the unique things GetSmart can do. You can safely assume that it can do all the ordinary things other download managers can (such as resume a download from the point it was stopped or schedule to start on a specific time ).
This article is written as a question and answer type.
What I really care about is speed, but this is really all about the Internet connection I use, your download manager can't really be faster than others can it?
It can. The connection to the Internet you are using will set the maximum speed you can get to. GetSmart can't make your connection faster than it is, but it can make sure you are using the maximum speed you can get. When downloading a file you probably won't get the maximum speed your connection allows (this is due to the fact that a connection isn't really direct. The data being transfered from a far server to your computer, will pass through other servers and may be lost in the way or stalled due to a busy server). GetSmart will use its split technology to overcome that problem. It will take the file you want to download and will split it apart. For example it will take a 1 MB files and split it to 5 parts each of 200 KB. Then, it will connect to the server using a different connection for each part (in our example 5 connections), download all the parts and in the end it will combine them and build the original file. If you ever tried to download more than one files with your download manager, you have probably seen that your overall speed is better when downloading multiple files than with one file. We are using the same idea but instead we are downloading one file using multiple connections. You can run some tests but the facts are that GetSmart in most cases will be significantly faster than other software of its kind.
I have a large bandwidth connection and some servers limits the speed I'm allowed to use. Even if I use 100 splits I'll still get the same results. Besides, it's not really nice to make too many connections to the same server, how do you solve that?
The solution is an advanced mirror system. There are many servers in the Interent which may contain the same file you are trying to download. GetSmart can automatically search for those servers and after it will make sure they all have the same file you want, it will assign to each split a different server. That means that you can download a file using 10 connections, each to a different server. This is guarantied to make your speed faster than ever.
I spend quite a lot of time downloading things from the Windows update site. Moreover downloading Internet Explorer 5 with that active setup was hell. I also got some Norton software which allows updating them through the Internet. There's nothing much I can do with my ordinary download manager since these are not normal downloads. Can GetSmart take over those downloads and download them using its split techniques?
Of course it can. It can even do so without you being noticed or having to do anything at all. Read the next section about the act as proxy feature to understand how it works.
What is the act as proxy feature?
By now I'm sure you're convinced that GetSmart can make things faster than any other software of its kind. We have searched for a way to allow other software to use our special techniques and to download through GetSmart the files they need. Almost every Internet software allows to be configured to use a proxy server. That means that instead of connecting to the Internet directly, it will connect to the proxy server and ask it to connect and download the data.
GetSmart can act as one and by configuring any software to use it as its proxy, it will connect to GetSmart and ask it to do the downloading.
What is it good for? You can configure your web browser to use GetSmart as its proxy. By doing so, GetSmart will handle the downloads for the browser. When you will ask to get a page, your browser will ask GetSmart to download the documents and pictures. GetSmart will download them using its split feature automatically, making your browsing faster. By configuring Windows/IE to use GetSmart, even your windows updates, or those active setup downloads will be downloaded using GetSmart, with resume and splits making things much faster. The best part is that it's done in the background, you don't really have to do anything. GetSmart can work with any software which supports proxy servers. Another example is Norton's liveupdate which also allows to be configured to use proxy.
If you're already using a proxy server you might ask yourself how can you work this out. Simple, configure GetSmart as your proxy server and configure Getsmart itself to use your real proxy. That way requests will go through GetSmart and GetSmart will connect through your proxy.
Are there any other cool stuff the act as proxy can do besides making things faster?
Yes it can. One thing is the catch clicks feature. Various download managers use some special techniques to allow them to catch clicks inside your browser. That way when you press on a link they instantly pop up and take control over the download. Using the act as proxy GetSmart can do just that. The best part is that it will work with ANY browser. GetSmart doesn't need to be specifically configured for different browsers. Moreover if a new browser will come out, GetSmart will work fine with it without the need of making changes to support that particualr browser.
The second thing is our cool shortcuts system. I myself don't like using those favorites or bookmarks the browsers are offering. GetSmart allows you to configure shortcuts to be used with your browsers. For example, writing the two letters 'gs' as a URL (where you insert the http://...) will cause your browser to go to our homepage. You can configure as many shortcuts as you like.
I've got a network in which only one station has an Internet connection. Can I use GetSmart's proxy as a gateway for other stations?
Although GetSmart's act as proxy was mainly built to allow other software to communicate with it, it can and it is known to be used as a proxy server which acts as a gateway in a network. This allows other stations to use GetSmart features just by using it as a proxy.
I get most of my downloads from FTP servers which are mostly busy or where I need to browse the site and see what files it has. Usually I use an FTP client, browse the site and then pass the URL of the file to my download manager (since most FTP client are excellent for browsing but not so good in the actual download). Can you solve that?
GetSmart has a built in full featured FTP client which will allow you to browse your site and select files for download. The selections you make will automatically be added to GetSmart queue to be downloaded later on. GetSmart also has a hammer system which will help you get into busy FTP servers.
What if I get to a web page which has many links and I would like to organize all those links into one place which will allow me to select some of them for download?
Our FTP client, is actually a general browser, which means you can give it an address of a web page and will scan that page for its links. It will of course allow you to select files to be downloaded. If one of those links is a page by itself you have to ability to browse into it, which means, instead of downloading it GetSmart will read it and extract the links. This resembles to directories in FTP servers.
I don't like the look of GetSmart, the buttons aren't really cool nor does the download window. What can you do about that?
It seems that our artistic skills aren't really good. What we find as cool seems to others ugly. We can't really solve that by ourselves since we can't draw something which everyone will like. What we can do is to allow customize GetSmart. GetSmart is constantly being changed to be complete skinable. This means that you will be able to customize everything. Create your own buttons and backgrounds or use other skins which people already made.
Is GetSmart available only in English?
No. GetSmart can be easily translated to any language. As soon as users will translate it, we will put those translations in our sites, allowing everyone to choose their language.
Any other cool stuff?
Many more. Way too many to describe them here, I'll just put a word or two.
- We got a small drop box icon, which you can put anywhere you want. It will give you small tool tips about stuff GetSmart is doing as well as some tips.
- A data integrity system which will compare the last bytes of your local file to the servers to make sure everything is fine.
- A timeout manager which after a period of time when no data arrives, will abort the connection and resume again.
- Our dialer allows you to insert more than one phone number for usage with ISP's which provides several numbers.
- A console window which shows what really happens with the connection.
- A server manager which enables configuring special connection limits for specific servers.
So I'm getting the fastest and smartest download manager there is, a web accelerator with shortcut system, a small proxy server, and a FTP client which can also browse HTMLs. Is that a 10 MB package which costs $1000 ?
Hell no. Our full package is 450KB which includes: Install / Uninstall, help documents and GetSmart itself. You can also download GetSmart by itself (no install or help files) in a ZIP file which is only 240 KB.
GetSmart is SHAREWARE which means you can freely try it for 30 days, after which you have to pay $12.50, if you decide to keep it. We have kept GetSmart really cheap to be affordable by anyone. The time GetSmart saves you will make you pay less for your Internet ISP and your phone company. This alone will save you much more than what we ask as registration. You only have to register once which entitles you to use any of the upcoming versions of GetSmart for any platform.
If you have read up to this point, I'm sure that you are anxious to download and try it yourself. Just follow the link to the download page.
