Netscape SmartDownload Minor Quirks and Major Annoyances Forrest Stroud
Minor Quirks and Major Annoyances
Netscape SmartDownload works off of a promising premise, but minor quirks and major annoyances keep the client from being an essential addition to your browser. By far the most annoying aspect of SmartDownload is the way it bombards you with advertisements. A standard banner ad has been integrated into the download status window; even worse, a Web page ad from Netscape pops up and cannot be closed until the file has finished downloading.
And since there are no options for automatically closing either of the two windows (the download status window and the separate Netscape ad window), you have to manually close both windows as well as click another button to install the app. As a result, any savings in time that could result for those who use SmartDownload are offset by having to manually complete the above tasks.
Another shortcoming of SmartDownload is that it doesn't offer nearly enough configuration options. For example, apps like GetRight have options for running the download through a virus scanner before installing it. Other capabilities absent in SmartDownload include download scheduling features, an option for automatically finding the fastest server to download from, traybar icons with status information, configurable size options for the status window, and more.
Finally, SmartDownload can only handle ZIP, EXE, and IDP extensions, with a significant limitation on EXE files in that only those EXE files on FTP sites can be downloaded (support for EXE files on HTTP Web sites is expected in the near future).
