How I can install "Internet Download Manager" on Ubuntu 14.04?

...I'm going to show you how to use latest version of IDM in any linux OS, yes you heard it right "latest version of IDM".
Till wine 1.7.4x, it only supported an older version of IDM which was IDM 5.05, It was functional but *** version when we look at newer versions of IDM with added new features.

So just follow this step by step guide to get your IDM working. So I have divided this Post in 3 parts:

Installing "Internet Download Manager"
Integrating IDM with Firefox.
Make IDM look Good.

Installing "Internet Download Manager"
As you know IDM is a window's application. So to run IDM on linux we need something that supports Windows apps in linux. Wine (Wine is not an emulator) is a free and open source compatibility layer software application that aims to allow applications designed for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems.

To install wine run following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa    
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wine1.7 winetricks

Note:- Make sure the Wine version installed is atleast 1.7.44. Because the older version of wine even 1.7.43 may not support latest version of IDM.

After you are finished with installing wine, you need to install IDM. Get latest version of IDM from internetdownloadmanager.com

Open the downloaded setup file with "Wine Windows Program Loader" and follow instructions. after installing IDM it will look as shown in screenshot below: enter image description here

Alrighty you have installed IDM but it doesn't look good. does it??. Don't worry we will handle this look thing just after we will be done with Firefox integration Part.

Integrating IDM with Firefox Web Browser.
Downloader's integration with Web Browsers is a must thing. Copying links from Browsers and pasting them in Download Managers would be a stupid thing to do. So let us integrate IDM with Mozilla Firefox.

To integrate with Firefox we need an Extension named Flashgot. Flashgot is an Extension that allows you to download all links with your favourite Downloader with a single click.
To install Flashgot goto Tools>Add-ons and type flashgot in searchbox and install FlashGot Mass Downloader x.x.x.xx.

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Next thing we need to do is to enable Wine Apps for FlashGot in order to use IDM. To do this type about:config in Firefox address bar and search for "wine". Now Toggle the value of Flashgot.useWine to true.

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Now goto Extentions and edit flashgot preferences. Under General Tab In Download Manager select "Internet Download Manager" and under Download tab Select "Intercept all Downloads". Click OK.

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Congratulations you have completed the IDM installation with full firefox integration.

Make IDM look Good and Verifying IDM Setup:-
This part is pretty easy. Just follow some simple steps:

  • Download Luna theme for wine and extract the downloaded file. (if this file is downloaded with IDM then our configuration is done properly and IDM Setup is also verified).

  • Open "Configure Wine" from launcher . Go to "Desktop Integration" tab and hit install button and select your theme with ".msstyles" extension.

  • Now from drop down list select VistaPerfectionX4 and hit apply.

You can see how IDM will look after applying this theme:

enter image description here enter image description here

Source : http://amittoor.blogspot.de/2015/07/how-to-run-any-version-of-internet.html


As a complement to the other answer: IDM can be installed in Playonlinux too (I find it much easier to try different Wine versions; in my case 6.23 version of IDM with Wine 1.8 didn't work outside Playonlinux, but there it worked with Wine 1.9). Tested in Ubuntu 16.04.

To get Flashgot integration with IDM installed through Playonlinux, following this tutorial:

After installing Flashgot and IDM, closing IDM and, in about:config in Firefox, setting Flashgot.useWine totrue, as indicated in the other answer, open Flashgot settings, and, under General tab, add IDM. For the executable path select /usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux; under Command line arguments template add the following: --run IDM %F /d [URL].

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In the tutorial linked above it says to use --run IDMAN %F /d [URL]. This seems to depend on the version of IDM, as in the tutorial version 5.0.5 is discussed, while I used 6.23. To see what the correct line is, first create a desktop launcher for IDM in Playonlinux (Configure, General tab, select virtual drive, Make a new shortcut...), open that launcher in a text editor ans see what the Exec line says (in my case it was --run "IDM" %F). Select IDM under the Flashgot tab, restart the browser and it should work.

On Firefox-Flashgot compatibility:

Newer versions of Firefox ("Quantum") are not yet supported by the Flashgot addon (it seems that they will be in the future - see this and this). Meanwhile, use Firefox ESR for this purpose, or Pale Moon browser.


uGet for Linux is a real alternative.

According to this answer that I was able to test, now there is a the updated version of uGet with multiple connections using both curl and area2.

(The official Ubuntu version is very outdated.)

Although people seem to praise aria2 before curl, using curl multiple connections in uGet it is for the first time in Linux (maybe excepting Flareget, now very limited in the free version) that I have seen download speeds pushed up in the same way IDM does it in Windows (and that I feel I do not need IDM in Linux).

sudo apt-get install curl aria2

Then install uGet downloaded from their website. Even the previous version had multi-thread for aria2, but I had better experience with curl in uGet, so I would say try the latest.

The main graphical difference from IDM is that you don't see the progress bars for multiple connections. But knowing your maximum speed you can verify that it's pushing it up.

One has to consider also the fact that uGet is free, unlike IDM and Flareget. If you don't mind commercial version, Flareget is an option; but except some more flashy things in the GUI, including those progress bars, it doesn't provide more.