FlashGet (formerly JetCar, from the literal translation of the Chinese phrase ) was a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the ...

download manager A download manager is a software tool that manages the downloading of files from the Internet, which may be built: into a Web browser, or as a, usually more sophisticated program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

. It was originally available in either paid or

ad-supported Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

versions, the latter of which included an

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems (in ...

Browser Helper Object A Browser Helper Object (BHO) is a DLL module designed as a plugin for the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser to provide added functionality. BHOs were introduced in October 1997 with the release of version 4 of Internet Explorer. Most ...

(BHO).

Features

FlashGet can be integrated with web browsers such as Avant Browser,

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, ...

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was on ...

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, ...

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current an ...

, Maxthon and

SeaMonkey SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which itself grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape ...

. It can download a sequence of files and it can download a file from multiple locations. It can split files to download into sections, and download each section simultaneously. It has an integrated offline reader. It supports

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...

, FTP,

Microsoft Media Services Microsoft Media Server (MMS), a Microsoft proprietary network-streaming protocol, serves to transfer unicast data in Windows Media Services (previously called NetShow Services). MMS can be transported via UDP or TCP. The MMS default port is UDP ...

RTSP The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is an application-level network protocol designed for multiplexing and packetizing multimedia transport streams (such as interactive media, video and audio) over a suitable transport protocol. RTSP is u ...

, BitTorrent and since version 1.8.4 eDonkey downloads.

Malware concerns

FlashGet has suffered from security flaws in its update mechanism which caused users to become infected with trojan viruses. There is also some concern about FlashGet downloading every file indicated by its FGUpdate3.ini file that is downloaded from the developer every time FlashGet is started. A malicious FGUpdate3.ini modified for exploit and introduced directly through the developer's server could cause FlashGet to download

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depr ...

to the computer without alerting the user. On April 4, 2010, FlashGet 3.4 was released containing adware and other undisclosed and unauthorized Chinese applications. Some of the ads were aggressively popping out of the system tray, causing much inconvenience. The installer was also converted to Chinese making it difficult for many users to install and remove the software.

References

External links

FlashGet Homepage
{{Download managers Adware Download managers BitTorrent clients Windows-only freeware

Features

Malware concerns

See also

References

External links