A free, open source download manager for Windows
It uses your whole connection: up to 32 connections per file, resume from the exact byte, and SHA-256 verification. No ads, no account, no telemetry, and every line is yours to read.
Built for big files and slow servers. A native Rust engine behind a quiet interface. No ads, no bundled extras, no background services.
Native, not a wrapper
A Rust download engine in a Tauri shell. No Electron, no Java runtime, and a 4 MB installer.
Nothing starts over
Progress is saved per segment as it arrives. Pause, reboot or lose the connection, and the transfer continues from the same byte.
Local by design
No account, no ads, no telemetry. The only traffic is your downloads and a check for updates on GitHub.
Thirty-two connections,
one file
Every file is split into up to 32 ranges, all written into one preallocated file. A connection that finishes early takes over half of the largest range left, so the tail never crawls.
Features
- Up to 32 connections per file
- Dynamic range re-splitting
- Resume from the exact byte
- ETag and If-Range resume checks
- Queue with a concurrency limit
- Speed limits and scheduling
Measured,
not claimed
One 756 MB file, downloaded twice on the same idle line: once over a single connection, the way a browser does it, then once with Apex. The Apex timing is read from the app's own database.
- One connectionas a browser downloads183s4.14 MB/s
- Apex32 ranges, 80 after re-splits134s5.64 MB/s
- Time saved
- 49s
- Faster by
- 1.36x
- Line speed
- 63 Mbit/s
- Runs
- 1 each, back to back
Where this does not help. The same test against download.blender.org showed no gain at all: one connection already reached 7.5 MB/s there and saturated the line, so eight parallel connections managed 7.0 MB/s. Splitting a file helps when the server limits each connection, which is what the Debian mirror does. It cannot make your own line faster.
Method: single connection measured with curl, one stream, written to disk. Apex measured from its own database, add to finish, which includes its setup probe. Same file, same session, nothing else downloading. Your numbers will differ by line, distance and mirror.
Features
- 1.36x faster on a throttled mirror
- 49 seconds saved on 756 MB
- 80 ranges after re-splitting
- No gain when your line is the limit
- Single run per arm, back to back
- Re-runnable: the method is published
From your browser
to Apex
Click a download like you always do. The extension hands it to Apex before any Save As dialog, and if Apex isn't running, the browser simply downloads it as usual.
Chrome and BraveEdgeFirefoxFeatures
- Chrome, Edge, Brave and Firefox
- Right-click: Download with Apex
- Always allow, per host
- Duplicate and disk space checks
- Clipboard watcher
- Local, token-gated hand-off
Videos, with
their subtitles
Paste a video page and pick a quality, from the best available down to audio only. Subtitles come along in your language, embedded when FFmpeg is installed.
Features
- YouTube and other sites via yt-dlp
- Whole playlists, or a selection
- Subtitle tracks by language
- Audio-only downloads
- One-click yt-dlp and FFmpeg setup
- Signed-in retry, only when you ask
The browser's checks,
kept
External download tools usually skip the checks your browser performs. Apex marks every file as coming from the internet, and can check it against the publisher's hash.
Read the privacy policyFeatures
- Mark of the Web on every file
- SHA-256 verification
- Plain HTTP links flagged
- Changed-file detection on resume
- Extension reads no page content
- No account, ads or telemetry
Questions,
answered
Is Apex free?
Yes. Apex is free and open source under the GPL v3, so anyone can read, build and audit the code. There is no account to create, no ads, and nothing bundled into the installer.
Is it safe to replace my browser's downloader?
Apex keeps the browser's protections instead of bypassing them: finished files carry the Windows Mark of the Web, so SmartScreen and Defender still scan them, and insecure HTTP links are flagged before the transfer starts. You can also verify a publisher's SHA-256 checksum against the finished file.
Which browsers does the extension support?
Chrome, Edge, Brave and Firefox. The extension is published in the Chrome Web Store, Microsoft Edge Add-ons and on addons.mozilla.org; Brave installs the Chrome listing. Even without the extension, you can paste a link, use the clipboard watcher, or drag a URL into the window.
What does Apex send over the network?
Only your downloads. The app has no telemetry, and the update check talks directly to GitHub Releases. This website is different: it counts total downloads and uses Vercel Web Analytics for aggregated page views, with no cookies and nothing tied to you. The privacy policy lists exactly what that records.
How do updates work?
Apex checks GitHub Releases for new versions and tells you when one is available. Updates install only when you choose; nothing happens in the background.
Why does Windows warn me about the installer?
Apex isn't code-signed yet, so SmartScreen shows its “not commonly downloaded” notice with an unknown publisher. That reflects reputation, not a scan result: the file comes straight from GitHub's release servers, and the warning fades as downloads accumulate. Choose Keep, then “Show more” and “Keep anyway” to continue. The installer's SHA-256 is published next to the download button, so you can confirm the file is the one that was built. A signed installer is planned as the project grows.
Get Apex.
Free for Windows 10 and 11.
Pair the browser extension from Apex Settings, then downloads you click are caught automatically.
Windows builds will be code-signed through the SignPath Foundation (free code signing provided by SignPath.io, certificate by SignPath Foundation). Code signing policy
If something breaks
No ticket queue, no chatbot. Reports go straight to the developer, and most fixes ship in the next release.