One of the major headaches I had with this program was the lack of clear instruction on HOW to download data. Once you know it is very easy but finding out how was a long process of trial and error. It didn't help that Google Chrome didn't let me download anything and just gave a meaningless message on the screen but once suspected it may be Chrome that was the problem and I switched to using Internet Explorer I was OK.
Basic rules:
select the Country/area that you want data for.
Select the data category that you want
Select the sub-category that you want.
So far so good and anyone can get that far.
Now click on the "Region" drop down box and pick one from that list. Note that if you are coming back for more data, you have to click on "Country Level" to reset the list and then select the next region. A bit frustrating and probably a program fault but once you know that it doesn't trip you up again.
Now click on "Download".
Another window will pop up offering all the device formats you can choose. I would have liked a non-specific option that just offered "CSV" as I don't want the data for any specific device but maybe I am in the minority. Anyway select the format you want (Navman CSV suites my purposes) and the option will be to Open or Save. I select Open and then review the data before filing it.
Its really very easy to use if you know the basic rules and pitfalls.
A little bit trickier if trying to load POIs for entire USA
It's a bit less intuitive when you wish to load POIs (of a certain type) for the whole USA - things seem a bit squirrelly to me, and it appears (though I know it's not) that I do not get the same ease of performing this operation every time I start fresh and go through the whole process.
Thanks for your comment, but I am still at a loss. I am not sure if I am doing something wrong, or if it is because I am on a Mac, or what. I have selected the Free POI that I want (ex: something from this page: https://poidirectory.com/poifiles/united_states/safety/ ) I then use the drop down list to select my state and click the big green download button. It then takes me to this page: http://www.gps-data-team.com/gps-poi.php and I see no way to actually download the POI. I have tried clicking the various options listed (the type of file) and that does nothing-- or brings me back to the previous page. Nothing downloads, and I don't get a request to trust the site for downloads. But now, I am getting a "exceeded the max downloads for the week" message, even though nothing has downloaded! Very frustrating.... help?