New World of File Hosting Services
You are very lucky, Sami1977, to be getting 600 KB/sec... your Internet connection must be blazing hot. Regardless of how the file hosting services set their speeds, my service tops out at 122-132 KB/sec, at best.
The speeds the hosters set have become very erratic, in general, since the Megaupload debacle. The best ones, from the earlier stage as well (besides Megaupload), were Filesonic (when they were a player), Mediashare (why isn't it used more?), Fileserve and Hotfile. A couple of members above have reported slower speeds with Hotfile, but after I tested, Hotfile behaved the same as always. (I understand sometimes the country you live in makes a difference with performance. Evidently, different strokes for different folks.)
(EDIT: Subsequently checking out Hotfile again, I see the speed has gone down some 30 Kbs/s from my top rate, and they have increased their wait time from 15 seconds to one minute.)
(EDIT AGAIN: Checked again soon after, and the wait time was back to 15 seconds, and the speeds are as good as usual. Just goes to show, can't form a conclusion based on a one or two time quirky performance.
In my experience, there have been times when even the old reliables would mysteriously show half-speed or worse. Sometimes setting the Internet box fixed the problem, sometimes not. In the case of the latter, I would try another time, and things would snap to normal.
Depositfiles sometimes would reach top speed, but like Oron, you could often count on them to come up a little short. I had an experience with Deposit in the last few days that was maddening - impossibly slow speeds. Yet when I tried later, they were back to the usual. (I made sure to get the rest of the download immediately, while they were on good behavior. Darn those multi-links.)
The greatest heartbreaker has been Rapidshare. There was a golden age of Rapidshare, lasting around a half year before the debacle. No CAPTCHA, no wait time, fast speeds. Now they have reduced their speed by one-fourth. Sometimes I can see the speed beginning at 132, and then one second later, the number changes to 30. This is a particular tragedy, because Rapidshare has been a primary choice among uploaders who love to offer their packages with a million links.
What's worse than the reduced speed – at least you know what you are getting on a consistent basis – is when the speed is shown as a top speed (you can see this happening with Rapidshare at times), but during the download, the numbers stop and the download freezes. Then, five or ten seconds later, the download resumes. This method really takes forever.
(Those of you who must download Rapidshare, here is a tip: find other videos you'd like to download, and then "piggyback" Rapidshare at the same time. This way you make use of your full download speed, and your time is less wasted.)
The foregoing gives a good idea as to why downloading streaming video is preferable, if you can find them. Yes, that process has its negative quirks as well, but at least the file sizes are smaller, shortening the downloading frustration and making more room on your hard drive. Plus, no CAPTCHA, no wait times, and often no multi-links. The usual .FLV file quality is not as good, but it's good enough. If you love a video that you'll keep returning to again and again, that should be the time to seek out the 600 GB high density version.
I wanted to report to you gentlemen that as of this morning, an across-the-board massacre has taken place with Bitshare. This is a service I have only become familiar with very recently, and their speeds are fine – but they have a "Daily Download Limit" that was sometimes not overcome by re-setting the Internet box. (They are on to this trick, and some of them have found ways around it. But their counter-measure is only irregularly effective. Case in point: Oron.)
Let me pass on an idea to those of you who would benefit by getting past the download limits. Sometimes - not always - using an offbeat browser gets around this problem, when re-setting the box fails. They are accustomed to the ways of the big ones, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, but when I throw "K-Meleon" at them, sometimes that throws them for a loop.
But back to the Bitshare massacre. I have noticed, since the Megaupload debacle, that Bitshare has become the choice for an uploader, or uploaders, who have put up some of the hard-to-get material that now sit on the links that have become dead. I had my eye on three packages, one of which I managed to nab. I got two of the five links from the second package, and when I went for the third, this morning I got the message that the file was deleted from their server.
Boy! What is more depressing than running into a deletion when you happen to be in the midst of the download process.
But then I checked the next package in line, which I want to tell you about, and that was also gone. I also checked the one I succeeded in downloading - gone, as well. I came to this thread and looked at some of Lannelen's posts (I remembered he had offered a number with Bitshare, recently), and they were still intact. So at least Bitshare did not get rid of everything. I also noticed the "Chubby Lesbians" dud that caused consternation to some, as luck would have it, is also up.
On March 16, I had posted in my "Note of Apprecation to SamKook" message, a guide to where one could get a requested video. The links were from Bitshare, and now they are gone. This is a good example - the video was DVDES-497, and it was very hard to get elsewhere. This probably individual uploader had made it his business to put up the tough ones, and Bitshare appears to have targeted these in one fell swoop.
(Isn't that weird? The way the process normally works is that a hoster responds to a manufacturer's complaint, and then deletes the one or several videos at hand. But Bitshare got rid of apparently many, from different manufacturers, at the same time. But on second thought, what they probably did was ban the uploader and all of his sensitive posts, after receiving a complaint.)
One of the ones I was hoping to get was a real toughie, and one that I was going to let you in on at a later point. This was AUKG-094, from the "Lesbian Battle r***" series. Apparently, the story involves a wide-eyed young teacher who gets on the nerves of a "Monster Parent," and the poor novice gets a taste of revengeful lesbian punishment. Just my cup of tea! Here is a picture.
.
You are very lucky, Sami1977, to be getting 600 KB/sec... your Internet connection must be blazing hot. Regardless of how the file hosting services set their speeds, my service tops out at 122-132 KB/sec, at best.
The speeds the hosters set have become very erratic, in general, since the Megaupload debacle. The best ones, from the earlier stage as well (besides Megaupload), were Filesonic (when they were a player), Mediashare (why isn't it used more?), Fileserve and Hotfile. A couple of members above have reported slower speeds with Hotfile, but after I tested, Hotfile behaved the same as always. (I understand sometimes the country you live in makes a difference with performance. Evidently, different strokes for different folks.)
(EDIT: Subsequently checking out Hotfile again, I see the speed has gone down some 30 Kbs/s from my top rate, and they have increased their wait time from 15 seconds to one minute.)
(EDIT AGAIN: Checked again soon after, and the wait time was back to 15 seconds, and the speeds are as good as usual. Just goes to show, can't form a conclusion based on a one or two time quirky performance.
In my experience, there have been times when even the old reliables would mysteriously show half-speed or worse. Sometimes setting the Internet box fixed the problem, sometimes not. In the case of the latter, I would try another time, and things would snap to normal.
Depositfiles sometimes would reach top speed, but like Oron, you could often count on them to come up a little short. I had an experience with Deposit in the last few days that was maddening - impossibly slow speeds. Yet when I tried later, they were back to the usual. (I made sure to get the rest of the download immediately, while they were on good behavior. Darn those multi-links.)
The greatest heartbreaker has been Rapidshare. There was a golden age of Rapidshare, lasting around a half year before the debacle. No CAPTCHA, no wait time, fast speeds. Now they have reduced their speed by one-fourth. Sometimes I can see the speed beginning at 132, and then one second later, the number changes to 30. This is a particular tragedy, because Rapidshare has been a primary choice among uploaders who love to offer their packages with a million links.
What's worse than the reduced speed – at least you know what you are getting on a consistent basis – is when the speed is shown as a top speed (you can see this happening with Rapidshare at times), but during the download, the numbers stop and the download freezes. Then, five or ten seconds later, the download resumes. This method really takes forever.
(Those of you who must download Rapidshare, here is a tip: find other videos you'd like to download, and then "piggyback" Rapidshare at the same time. This way you make use of your full download speed, and your time is less wasted.)
The foregoing gives a good idea as to why downloading streaming video is preferable, if you can find them. Yes, that process has its negative quirks as well, but at least the file sizes are smaller, shortening the downloading frustration and making more room on your hard drive. Plus, no CAPTCHA, no wait times, and often no multi-links. The usual .FLV file quality is not as good, but it's good enough. If you love a video that you'll keep returning to again and again, that should be the time to seek out the 600 GB high density version.
I wanted to report to you gentlemen that as of this morning, an across-the-board massacre has taken place with Bitshare. This is a service I have only become familiar with very recently, and their speeds are fine – but they have a "Daily Download Limit" that was sometimes not overcome by re-setting the Internet box. (They are on to this trick, and some of them have found ways around it. But their counter-measure is only irregularly effective. Case in point: Oron.)
Let me pass on an idea to those of you who would benefit by getting past the download limits. Sometimes - not always - using an offbeat browser gets around this problem, when re-setting the box fails. They are accustomed to the ways of the big ones, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, but when I throw "K-Meleon" at them, sometimes that throws them for a loop.
But back to the Bitshare massacre. I have noticed, since the Megaupload debacle, that Bitshare has become the choice for an uploader, or uploaders, who have put up some of the hard-to-get material that now sit on the links that have become dead. I had my eye on three packages, one of which I managed to nab. I got two of the five links from the second package, and when I went for the third, this morning I got the message that the file was deleted from their server.
Boy! What is more depressing than running into a deletion when you happen to be in the midst of the download process.
But then I checked the next package in line, which I want to tell you about, and that was also gone. I also checked the one I succeeded in downloading - gone, as well. I came to this thread and looked at some of Lannelen's posts (I remembered he had offered a number with Bitshare, recently), and they were still intact. So at least Bitshare did not get rid of everything. I also noticed the "Chubby Lesbians" dud that caused consternation to some, as luck would have it, is also up.
On March 16, I had posted in my "Note of Apprecation to SamKook" message, a guide to where one could get a requested video. The links were from Bitshare, and now they are gone. This is a good example - the video was DVDES-497, and it was very hard to get elsewhere. This probably individual uploader had made it his business to put up the tough ones, and Bitshare appears to have targeted these in one fell swoop.
(Isn't that weird? The way the process normally works is that a hoster responds to a manufacturer's complaint, and then deletes the one or several videos at hand. But Bitshare got rid of apparently many, from different manufacturers, at the same time. But on second thought, what they probably did was ban the uploader and all of his sensitive posts, after receiving a complaint.)
One of the ones I was hoping to get was a real toughie, and one that I was going to let you in on at a later point. This was AUKG-094, from the "Lesbian Battle r***" series. Apparently, the story involves a wide-eyed young teacher who gets on the nerves of a "Monster Parent," and the poor novice gets a taste of revengeful lesbian punishment. Just my cup of tea! Here is a picture.
.
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