I’m new to Linux operating systems, but have wanted to switch from Windows since a long time back. After trying out several, including Ubuntu, I’ve decided OpenSUSE 12 is the best out there. I enjoy everything about it… except - downloads! In Windows without a download manager, in Firefox & Chrome I’d get a max of about 300 kbps in download speeds. But with IDM (Internet Download Manager) I get no less than 600/kbps and usually around 1.2 Mbps. Plus it allows me to directly download video streams like YouTube for example. I can’t find a similar software in Linux. So my downloads are limited to a crawling 200 kbps, and moreover I can’t download YouTube videos anymore. Is there any software that can provide this functionality? Without download speeds and functionality I see no choice but to switch back to Windows 
Please help!
You can get all sorts of different download managers in linux.
You were probably experiencing increased download speeds because the utility you were using would either fork out and download the same file from different sources at once, or make multiple connections to the same server!
*This behaviour is frowned upon by some system admins and in the rare case, results in an IP ban as it can overwhelm servers so take heed!
*
One such utility available for linux is aria2c.
Install:
sudo zypper in aria2
Then use it from the command line:
aria2c -c -x5 http://url.com
“-c” will continue the file if you have to start over because of a lost connection/dropped packets…
“-x5” is the number of connections to make, where in this case, we use 5 connections
There is also aria2fe, a gui for aria2.
sudo zypper in aria2fe
It should place a button in your “start” menu. Search for aria2fe there or use <Alt+F2> to open the search box.
These download managers are beneficial to those on non-broadband internet like dial-up or satellite. Broadband users should be happy with over 100Kb/sec download speeds.
What browser are you using?
There are apps available to download Youtube videos for offline viewing.
I have used the one from oxytube because you can download an mp3 directly without converting or the low to high quality video formats (flv or mp4 for example).
It places a download link below every youtube video in the youtube site.
Ensure when downloading from youtube you are not infringing any copyrights or intellectual property.
Awesome. Thanks. I’m using Chromium. I’ll try out aria2c and said oxytube thing. Cheers!