FreeDM — Free Download Manager

A free, source-available download manager for Windows, in the style of Internet Download Manager. It splits a file into many pieces, fetches them in parallel, and puts them back together — with pause, resume, a persistent queue and browser handoff. No licence fees, no ads, no paid APIs, no account.

Licence: FreeDM is source-available under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. You may use, change and redistribute it for noncommercial purposes; commercial use is not permitted. It is not an open-source licence — see LICENSE for the full terms and NOTICE for the copyright notice.

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What it does

Downloading

• Segmented downloads — the file is split into pieces fetched in parallel over Range requests, and written straight into one .part file.
• Dynamic splitting — the remaining work is kept in a queue and re-divided as workers finish, and the piece size (1–8 MB) follows the slowest active connection, so one bad pipe cannot hold back the whole file.
• Pause, resume and crash-safe resume — progress is written to a sidecar next to the file; restarting continues where it stopped.
• Safe resume — the server's ETag/Last-Modified are checked, so a changed file restarts cleanly instead of producing a corrupt one.
• Integrity — the finished size is checked against the advertised size, and an expected sha256/sha512/sha1/md5 digest is verified.
• Streams — an HLS (.m3u8) or DASH (.mpd) playlist is downloaded segment by segment and joined into one file, with AES-128 decryption.
• Mirrors — alternative sources for the same file, tried in turn.
• Proxies — HTTP or SOCKS, with credentials and a bypass list.
• Speed limits — per download, and one cap for everything at once.

The queue

• Jobs, status and segment offsets are kept in a local SQLite database, so closing the app (or the machine) loses nothing.
• Categories with editable rules, and an auto-sort toggle that files downloads into Video/, Music/, Documents/ and so on.
• A search box and status filter that hide the rows that do not match.
• Scheduled starts and a daily window in which downloads may run.
• Export and import the queue as a file (a plain list of URLs works too).
• Shut down when done, if you want the machine to power off when the queue is empty.

The browser

• A Chrome/Edge and Firefox extension that hands browser downloads to FreeDM, with the page's cookies.
• A right-click "Download with FreeDM" menu for links, videos and pages.
• A native messaging host, so the browser can start FreeDM by itself.

Also

• A console build with live progress, for the terminal.
• An installer (Inno Setup script) and a fully portable build.
• An opt-in log file and an opt-in update check — neither phones home unless you ask it to.

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Download

Grab the latest release (the page always shows the current build):

https://github.com/EddyGameDev/FreeDM/releases/latest

It contains three files:

File	What it is
FreeDM-<version>.exe	the app — double-click it, nothing to install
FreeDM-cli-<version>.exe	the same program with a console attached, so it prints live progress
FreeDM-Setup-<version>.exe	an installer with shortcuts and an uninstaller

The portable build needs no installation and makes no registry changes: the queue and your settings live in %APPDATA%\FreeDM, so you can delete the executable and nothing is left behind. The uninstaller never deletes your queue either.

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Using it

The window

1. Paste a URL into the URL(s) field. To add several at once, paste one URL per line — each valid line becomes its own job; lines that are not http(s) URLs are reported, and duplicates are skipped.
2. Pick a Save to folder (defaults to your Downloads folder).
3. Set the number of Threads (more is faster on big files).
4. Click Add Download.

The buttons under the list are Pause / Resume / Cancel / Remove, Open File, Open Folder, Show in Folder, Limit..., Global Limit..., Checksum..., Details..., Clean Up..., Export..., Import... and Clear Completed. The Schedule... button picks a date and time for the selected jobs.

The Search box and the Status filter hide the rows that do not match (by name, URL, host or status) while the app keeps running. The filter is remembered for the next launch.

A few of the rest, in one place:

• Limit... — a live speed cap for the selection (KB/s, 0 = unlimited).
• Global Limit... — a cap on the combined speed of every download.
• Checksum... — the digest the site publishes; a mismatch fails the job and shows both digests.
• Details... — everything about a job, including the full error text.
• Network... — the proxy, the bypass list, the IPv4/IPv6 preference, and a Test connection button.
• Categories... — the rules that decide which folder a file lands in.
• Mirrors... — alternative sources for a file.
• Clean Up... — deletes abandoned .part files older than the age you set; running downloads are never touched.
• About FreeDM... — the version, an update check and the log switch.

Only a few downloads run at once (default 3; set Active: in the toolbar). The rest show queued; select a row and use Start Now, Move Up or Move Down to change the order.

The command line

FreeDM-cli.exe "https://example.com/big.iso" -o C:\Downloads -t 16
FreeDM-cli.exe "https://example.com/big.iso" --limit 2000000   # 2 MB/s cap
FreeDM-cli.exe --version      # the version, the licence and where things live
FreeDM-cli.exe --help

The console build prints live progress. The windowed build cannot print anything (it has no console attached), so FreeDM.exe --version shows a small dialog instead.

Browser handoff

1. Click Browser... → Export extension. That copies the extension to %APPDATA%\FreeDM\extension and opens the folder.
2. In Chrome/Edge open chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions), turn on Developer mode, click Load unpacked, and pick that folder. Firefox: Export for Firefox..., then about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox → Load Temporary Add-on....
3. Open the extension's Options, paste the token from the Browser... dialog, and Save.

A download started in the browser is then handed to FreeDM — URL, cookies, referer and user-agent — and the browser's own copy is cancelled. If FreeDM is closed, the browser download simply continues. The control server listens only on 127.0.0.1:6801 and needs the token; uncheck Accept downloads from the browser to turn it off.

Install native host lets the browser start FreeDM by itself when a download is handed over while the app is closed. Without it the download stays in the browser.

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Building from source

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt -r requirements-dev.txt
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build.ps1

build.ps1 produces dist\FreeDM.exe (windowed) and dist\FreeDM-cli.exe (console), and generates the icon if it is missing. To build the installer too (needs Inno Setup, which is free):

iscc installer\FreeDM.iss      # -> dist\FreeDM-Setup-<version>.exe

Testing

python -m pytest            # the whole suite
python tests\test_w1.py     # or one suite at a time

The suite runs on Windows, Ubuntu and macOS in CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml), which also builds the app, compiles the installer, installs it and runs the installed program.

Changing the version

The version appears in a few files, so set them all at once:

python scripts\set_version.py 1.8.0

A test checks that they agree, so they cannot drift apart.

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Security

FreeDM was reviewed for security twice; the findings and the fixes are in docs/SECURITY.md, and the whole project was reviewed in docs/REVIEW.md. In short:

• The control server listens on 127.0.0.1 only, needs a 256-bit token for every state-changing request, refuses a Host header that is not loopback, and gives no CORS permission to ordinary web pages — only to the extension.
• The extension keeps the token in chrome.storage.local, so it never leaves the device, and asks for no permission it does not use.
• A playlist can only name http(s) URLs, cannot reach your local network unless you allow it, and never carries your own headers to another host.
• The queue database, the token and the proxy password are stored in plain text under %APPDATA%\FreeDM. On a shared Windows account, other users of that account can read them.

Where things stand

docs/MILESTONE_3.md holds the plan for what comes next, docs/MILESTONE_2.md records the finished work and docs/REVIEW.md is the review behind the plan. docs/FEATURES.md lists every feature and where it lives; docs/FILE_MAP.md is the map of the source tree.

Project layout

FreeDM/
├── freedm/                 # the application
│   ├── engine/             # the download engine
│   ├── gui/                # the window
│   ├── version.py          # the version, in one place
│   └── ...                 # the rest of the modules
├── extension/              # the browser extension (Chrome/Edge/Firefox)
├── tests/  scripts/  docs/  releases/  dist/
├── LICENSE  NOTICE  CHANGELOG.md  README.md

Licence

PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 — see LICENSE and NOTICE.