Aria2: Making your downloads sing your tune
Going Solo
Downloading files is central to modern computing. Whether you use your browser's function or rely on more specialized tools, you won't find a more versatile utility than Aria2.
Many utilities, from curl to git, can be used to download. Few, however, can match Aria2 [1] for completeness. Although billed on its home page as a modest "utility for downloading files," Aria2 is actually one of those free software tools that incudes every possible feature relevant to its purpose.
The tool supports multiple protocols, verifies checksums and authentication certificates on the fly, and includes a complete BitTorrent client; Aria2 is so complete that its man documentation [2] is more than 30 pages long when printed.
Yet all these are only secondary features. Aria2's main claim to fame is its ability to decrease download times by downloading simultaneously from multiple connections and sources, regardless of the download protocol. It can't overcome heavy site usage, and the right options can take some experimentation to find, but I have seen it reduce download time by as much as 20 percent – a significant savings even with a high-speed connection.
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