Q: FDM is inactive, but my firewall reports that FDM still makes some strange connections. Is it a spyware?

Don't panic, read the following explanations (based on FDM 3.x version):

1. FDM may check for updates.
Open main FDM window, go to menu Options | Settings | General | Essential and select "Turn off automatic updates" in Update section.

2. FDM has some social features.
Go to menu Options | Settings | Downloads | Essentials and unmark all features in FDM Community section.

3. FDM may have some bittorrent protocol extensions active.
Go to menu Options | Settings | Downloads | Bittorrent and look at the torrent port range - probably the conections reported by your firewall are from this range, which should be the explanation for those reports.
Now with "Enable Bittorrent" option active unmark all Bittorrent features:
- Enable DHT
- Enable Local Peer Discovery
- Enable UPnP
- Enable NAT-PMP
- etc. if any new option is available.
Click "OK" and restart FDM. Only then you can unmark "Enable Bittorrent" option and remove associations for torrent and magnet link (thanks to Reelix for helpful hint).

4. Click OK and restart FDM. It should work OK immediately, if you haven't downloaded any torrents using DHT or magnet links.
Otherwise it will take some time (maybe a few days or more) for other nodes to remove your DHT node and stop making connections (thanks to D. Yessa for this explanation).
If you really don't want to use torrents any more, you can delete btdht.sav file, if it still exists - look for FDM service files location.

FDM 5.x/6.x also may check for updates and use torrents, but some options may be unavailable or broken in different FDM 5.x/6.x builds. Update to the newest stable build is always recommended, testing the newest beta build is also welcome.

Q: Does FDM work in 64-bit Windows?
Yes, it does. FDM 3.x is a 32-bit application and works like other 32-bit apps. FDM 5.x and 6.x have separate installers for 32-bit and 64 versions.

Q: Does FDM work with 64-bit browsers?
General answer: Yes it does (in newest versions).
However, old versions may not work. See explanation below.

64-bit Windows make separation between 32-bit and 64-bit processes, so you cannot run 32-bit extensions in 64-bit applications.
Currently 32-bit FDM 3.x uses pure JS extension for Firefox that may work with 64-bit Firefox. FDM 5.x and 6.x have separate fully 64-bit version.

If want to use FDM 3.x in 64-bit Windows with other browsers or have other problems, there are some workarounds existing:
* Pure JavaScript code works in any-bit browser, if it supports JS. FDM uses also dlls, but starting from FDM 3.9.6 build 1614 Firefox extension uses only JS so it should work with both 32- and 64-bit FIrefox and other browsers based on Gecko engine
* 64-bit Internet Explorer 10+ is a dual mode browser - it can run both 64- and 32-bit processes, if 32-bit plugin is required. If FDM plugin is not properly detected and doesn't work in IE, you must disable Enhanced Protection Mode in IE's Internet Options. Note that MS Edge has got only limited support for extensions so far.
* 64-bit plugins may be used to catch needed data and write them to the disk in a place monitored by 32-bit app (FDM still uses 32-bit plugins).
* You can test another download helper instead of FDM add-on, f.e. FlashGot for Firefox, SaveFrom.net helper etc.

If you still have some problems, follow the reporting rules and report them on this forum. Note that FDM 3.x is unsupported and won't be updated.

Q: I cannot finish uninstall FDM. The uninstaller displays window with no progress and launches Chrome again and again. What is wrong?

Currently all plugins for Chrome must be installed and uninstalled only from Chrome Web Store running in Chrome web browser, so in any case you should better follow the steps listed below:

1. Open any of installed web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari etc.), remove (disable, uninstall, delete etc.) FDM plugin from all the browser options and close the browser. Repeat it for all the browsers.
2. Run FDM and turn off all browser monitoring and integration options (including flash video). Don't forget about torrent and magnet associations, if you want to remove FDM permanently.
3. Close FDM and run uninstall. Now it should work with no problems.
4. If you still have problems, download the newest FDM build and reinstall it without uninstalling the old buggy one.

Q: How can I send message to FDM support?

You can use following options:
1. Post message to this forum. Read the reporting rules and FDM FAQ before posting.
2. Send a private message from this forum to a developer that asked you to do it.
3. Post feature request to http://freedownloadmanager.idea.informer.com providing detailed description and pictures if needed.
4. Use the web form http://freedownloadmanager.org/support.htm if you want to provide some confidential details.
5. Send email directly to support (at) freedownloadmanager.org if you want to attach some language files (newly translated or updated) or confidential files (*.sav service files or FDM logs).

Q: Is there a way to specify the number of sections for a single download?


A: Yes, there is. When adding a new download, click on the Advanced button before starting it. In the new dialog window, under the Connection tab in the Sections area, you'll see Maximum number. You can set it to any preferred value.
Here's what it looks like:

If you want to set the FDM client's language, please follow the below steps (you will need the latest version of Notepad++). As an example, the instruction describes how to change the language of the program from English to Arabic:

1. In the Control Panel, select the 'Region and Language' option. In a newly opened window, go to the Administrative tab to make sure that the current language for non-Unicode programs is the one you need. In case, for instance, the language is set as English, click on 'Change system locale', choose Arabic and restart your PC as will be offered.



2. After restarting the computer, open the 'Language' folder of the FDM program. The default folder path:
for Win_x32 is "C:\Program Files\Free Download Manager\Language"
for Win_x64 is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Free Download Manager\Language"

In the folder, open the file of the language you want to set with Notepad++.



3. Convert an opened text file to the UTF-8 format. To do that, open the 'Encoding' menu item and choose 'Convert to UTF-8-BOM'.



4. Save the converted document as an .lng file.





5. Copy the result file to the 'Language' folder of the FDM program.



6. Restart FDM and choose the needed language in the 'View -> Language' menu item.

Q: I have problems with https downloads. I've got "Unknown network error" message…

Some sites for no special reason insist on using newest encrypting protocols TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 for HTTPS connections.
FDM 3.x uses system encrypting libraries so in Windows XP and Windows Vista you cannot reach such sites as those operating systems support TLS 1.0 only. You can change https to http in your download link – in most cases it works (and it proves that there is really NO need to insist on HTTPS use), but some sites force full encryption with HSTS and such downloads may be unavailable for FDM 3.x in Windows XP/Vista.

Newest web browsers (like Firefox or Chrome) and download managers (like FDM 5.x) use OpenSSL libraries for encryption so they may work properly in any supported OS. If you use a new browser, you can add problematic https site to skip list in FDM 3.x and download files in your browser.

Final update: Problem is (partially) solved in Windows XP Embedded (WEPOS, POSReady 2009). The OS has been updated to support newer encryption methods (AES-256), hash functions (SHA-2: SHA256, SHA384, SHA512), and connection protocols (TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2), finally there is also TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 support in cumulative update for Internet Explorer 8, but TLS is disabled by default and hidden from "Internet Options" aplet. You must unhide needed options by editing registry manually. Full description is available here:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/171814-pos ... nt-1156441

Notes:
1. Microsoft implemented only basic elements of TLS 1.2 protocol, without extensions currently used by many servers, for example:
* RFC 3546, June 2003, Server Name Indication (replaced by RFC 6066 in 2011)
* RFC 4492, May 2006, Elliptic Curve Cryptography (updated a few times and replaced by RFC 8422 in 2018)
2. After releasing above mentioned Windows updates, in August 2018 TLS 1.3 was approved as RFC 8446 standard. Some sites already implemented the new standard, so any info about their availability is welcome (currently about 80% of web traffic goes via HTTPS). Firefox 52.9 ESR is supposed to support TLS 1.3, but it's disabled in about:config.

Q: How to fix the “Couldn’t load XPCOM” error in Firefox (Windows – all versions)?

XPCOM is a cross-platform component object model used by Mozilla, which is similar to Microsoft COM, and is required for file and memory management, basic data structures and so on. It's used by software running Gecko based engine (Firefox, Cyberfox, Waterfox and other browsers, Thunderbird etc.) and by extensions developed for that software.
You may see the error if you try to run Firefox (possibly opened on some download page) with FDM turned off. In this case just close the error message, run FDM and only then run Firefox again.
There may be also other reasons, including malware infection, so you should also see info on Repair Windows site: Fix Firefox XPCOM error: Couldn’t load XPCOM (Solved).

Q: How to update WebExtension in Firefox?

Open "Add-ons" page in Firefox (you can use hamburger menu or about:addons URL), go to "Extensions" tab, find "Free Download manager extension" on the list, right click the extension name and select "Find updates" from the context menu. Note that update may be temporary unavailable or blocked by antivirus, firewall or other security software in your system.

Q: Why WebExtension cannot catch proper download links? Sometimes it catches random images or files, but on the other hand, it is not catching links it should catch.

Firefox developers haven't implemented full WebExtensions API, See bugzilla entry: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245652 and other entries linked there.

You can expect problems when:
* The server side doesn't provide proper filename for download (f.e. when the link doesn't contain file extension) or the server side uses redirections (f.e. to generate file on-the-fly). In such cases even Firefox may save any download (pdf, epub etc.) using "index.html" as default name.
* Firefox has internal support for file type in download link (f.e. pdf, zip).

Some problems may be fixed in updated FDM or FDM WebExtension builds (see previous question), some may still exist. As a workaround you can:
* Hover mouse over the link/button and see if displayed link contains filename with extension. If something is missing or extension is supported by Firefox, right click the link and select "Download with FDM" option from the context menu. The same method may work for some redirections, but probably won't work for many "Download" buttons when JavaScript is in use.
* For unwanted downloads add most annoying websites or file extensions to skip list in FDM. Some file hosting services use buggy code or other protection measures to prevent downloading in any external download manager. There's no good workaround, in some cases you should even turn off the FDM extension in Firefox . If you want to report such cases, you should always provide download link.
* Change FDM config to catch downloads only with "Alt" pressed (it probably won't work).

Q: I still use older software. Where can I find older FDM builds which work OK with my browser/system?

You can search for older software on some software downloading websites like Filehippo:
https://filehippo.com/pl/search?q=free+download+manager

or Sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freedownload/

You can also check archives of the forum moderator on OneDrive:
search.php?keywords=my+OneDrive&terms=all&author=Usher&fid%5B%5D=1&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=-1&t=0&submit=Search

or ask the moderator providing needed details…