JAVA: How to download file from internet - options.

There are several methods, but here few which I use or used:

1) Old-school, quite simple but less effective of all. 

            URL url = new URL(address);
            OutputStream out = new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(fileName));

            URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();

            InputStream in = conn.getInputStream();

            byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

            int numRead;
            long numWritten = 0;

            while ((numRead = in.read(buffer)) != -1) {
                out.write(buffer, 0, numRead);
                numWritten += numRead;
            }

 

2) Use apache commons-io, just one line code:

org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils.copyURLToFile(URL, File)

3)  Using Apache's HttpClient - where you can manipulate different types of requests method (setting get and post parameters  - Here is a great tutorial on using HttpClient

4) Give a try to Java NIO (again introduced in 1.4 - still almost no one is using nio!)

URL website = new URL(address);
ReadableByteChannel rbc = Channels.newChannel(website.openStream());
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(fileName);
fos.getChannel().transferFrom(rbc, 0, Long.MAX_VALUE);

Many operating systems can transfer bytes directly from the source channel into the filesystem cache without actually copying them. Long.MAX_VALUE will allow at most 2^63 bytes (larger than any file in existence).

Check more about it here.