A friend who is happy with its results, recommended FDM to me. He can't or wont tell me the right steps to follow to get the good results he gets. With his help, I did set Browser Integration but my results are still HTML or FM rather than MP3 or MP4 formats. Could I please get a detailed series of steps that will make the program useful to me ?

The only way this will work is for you to detail what you are trying to download from where.

It has a lot of options, and depending on the method you are trying, different options will apply.

An example URL would be
https://unsw.us13.list-manage.com/track ... 3b1d6e94ae

What I can get from FDM is HTML - what I want is MP3.

The one who can succeed with FDM says he gets a 'Save As' option from the context menu of the website. I do not.

I have tried to set Browser Integration and succeeded in Chrome, but failed in Firefox.

Even using that link in a browser it takes me to a page - and HTML page.

https://omny.fm/shows/unsw-centre-for-i ... nst-itself

It is unclear to me what your reply is meant to convey.
If it is that ONLY html is available, that is contradicted by the fact I myself have been able to download an MP3 from it, using an unconventional means; moreover the person I mentioned in my first post could get FDM to output an MP3.

My concern is NOT with this URL, I simply provided it as an example of a site that causes FDM to yield an HTML, whereas MP3 is wanted and available. I just want to know how to persuade FDM to output MP3 instead of HTML.

After much anguished research and trialing, I discovered the following :
Free Download Manager must be running (in the background) and have Browser Integration set in Preferences, and Elephant add-on installed. Then right-click in the page where the medium (video/audio) is playing; and the context menu will contain 'Download with FDM' and 'download video'; which need to be clicked. Those options are amongst very many and near the bottom, so may well be OUT OF SIGHT (NOT obvious). The download will appear in the location specified in Preferences.

In spite of the breakthrough I posted on May 22, the 'successful' method I described now gives me m3u8 output (originally I could only get HTML or FM). The guy that recommended FDM to me says that it is totally straightforward. From the same URL, he (in Britain) can get video output, where I (in Australia) get m3u8. What can be missing from my procedure ?

Hello,
m3u8 provide a stream, which can contain a video. The latest versions of FDM6 does support m3u8.

In addition to the requirements listed in my post, I've discovered that in Chrome's Manage Extensions, enabling 'allow access to file URLs' makes 'download with FDM' show in the Context menu of a video.

In all, it is a VERY complex/demanding process to get useful results - a process that I have not been able to find 'printed' anywhere, but have painfully pieced together by accidental discovery and trial and error over a very long period. But now Chrome is saying it may not support FDM much longer !

Since posting the above I've discovered that it downloaded numerous MP4s, although I only selected one; they went to the default destination for the browser rather than to FDM's.

I think that the 'download with FDM' option only shows in the context menu, if FDM was launched with Windows. So It CAN do what is needed, but does not do it reliably.

Since all those MP4s downloaded, the output format has become ".av1.mp4.m3u8" and occupies just 1 byte.

I do wish someone who uses FDM effectively would respond with useful hints.