IE DownloadHelper

IE DownloadHelper is a very useful Internet Explorer add-on that lets you download audio and video files from your favorite websites.

Once installed, the application places an icon in the Internet Explorer status bar, letting you start a new download with just a few clicks.

Besides the fact that it provides such an easy way to download multimedia files from the Internet, IE DownloadHelper also sports a very handy conversion tool that's unfortunately available only in the premium version.

It can thus download videos and music and convert them in any other format, including AVI, FLV, MP3, MP4, MOV or WAV.

The “Settings” screen is just minimal and provides a single option, the one that allows you to configure the default file saving folder, which speeds up the downloading process even more.

On the downside, once you start a new download, IE DownloadHelper opens a new window showing the progress of the download and displaying the total size of the file. However, it doesn't boast any other statistics or estimates, so you can't see remaining time or download speed.

Other than that, IE DownloadHelper works like a breeze on most Internet Explorer versions, be they newer or older. While it may need a browser restart to run properly, IE DownloadHelper may also need you to grant access to Internet Explorer the first time you run the application after installation.

IE DownloadHelper is indeed a helpful lightweight download manager and since it does such a good job at managing online video and audio files, it could easily become a top product with a few minor improvements.