What’s wrong with Rapidshare?

[c.Tech]

Recently I opened up a Rapidshare collectors section, to start a rouge science library which has/had many advantages.

Little did I know that half my files would be deleted soon.

It seems that Rapidshare has been a little unfair with its 30 day limit. Instead of letting the 30 days run out before full download they decided to delete about half my files.

It isn’t that much of a worry because most of the files were unimportant videos which I will only uploading again on request.

I also noticed that the files that were deleted has the least downloads of them all, this could probably be overcome by downloading the files 4 times within thew first 15 days.

Has anybody else had problems with this, or know anything that I don’t?

[Hitech_Hillbilly]

I have actually been having that problem with some of the files from the rapidshare links post. Only about 4 so far, but it is irritating. I had downloaded the files about 2 weeks ago, so I know they hadn't reached the 30 day limit.

[Sausagemit]

That file I was suppose to test the 30-day limit (not fully downloading an item to see if it registerd as a download) with got deleted before the second week was up. It is kinda iritating but they are offering you a free service and beggars can't be choosers.

[pandoz]

I have premium accounts, so the only time mine have ever disappeared is when someone ratted me out for illegal content. But, when I had free accounts, I noticed a similar behavior.

[megalomania]

It would not surprise me to learn their "policy" changes if they are faced with a shortage of storage space. Who would miss a seemingly insignificant free file no one has downloaded in 2 weeks?

[Bugger]

Pandoz, what were the names of the files of yours that were deleted because of allegedly illegal content as the result of someone "ratting" on you? BTW I also have a premium account.

[nbk2000]

It's probably some automatic file scanner that checks the names of the uploaded file and the inside of unencrypted files, to see if there's any naughty words like "Latest Hollywood Piece of Shit Movie" or "Latest Piece of Synthetic Whore Music".

Any file with words like Nazi, Metallica, Movie, Brittany, etc. is going to get checked and deleted. There are Copyright Nazis in germany, you know. ;)

Also, it may be that they delete encrypted files, since they don't know if they contain copyrighted materials inside, since they have no way of checking.

[megalomania]

I have seen numerous password protected zip and rar files the contents of which cannot be so much as glimpsed without the password last for many months, so I know they don’t delete them out of hand. However, they do seem to quite ruthlessly enforce copyrighted material, but without any pattern I can discern. Some material gets deleted almost immediately, whereas some copyrighted content can go for months and months. I suspect there are vigilant cocksuckers who look for specific material on warez sites and actively pursue its deletion. It is quite difficult to find old copies of “Before & After Magazine” for example as they tend to disappear in a matter of days.

I have thought about a system to protect rapidshare uploaded files from detection and deletion. If only there was software to automate the process, but macros may do in a pinch. The process is as follows:
A randomly generated text file of varying length is produced and dropped into a folder containing the original file
The original file is added to a rar archive along with the random text file.
The rar archive is compressed as a solid archive and given a random name.
The file is uploaded to rapidshare via some automatic method.

The purpose of the random text file is to change the nature of the rar file to make it unique (like a unique hash). Likely they check for file names, file sizes, and file contents. If you deny them a unique name, size, and access to the contents, they will have that much harder time deleting the material. Merely changing the filename may not be enough if they have determined the hash, likewise password protecting the contents insures they cannot peek. The random name would not tip your hand as to the nature of the contents.

The weakness in this chain is still the human factor of vigilant enforcers of intellectual property. If you publicly post a file location, the contents, and the password, they can manually rat the file out. Of course, of what great impediment is a single man or group of men standing in a river to the flow of all the water? There is a far larger contingent of hackers and warezphiles willing to distribute the riches of e-knowledge than there are foul idiotic cybercops.

[c.Tech]

This is just not on, they aren’t deleting anything bad (such as nazi propaganda) they are deleting random videos.

I have 5 files left now and the file that has the longest time with no download is 8 days.

I'm assuming they have a 10 day limit.

I wonder how many files are still active in "Lots of Rapidshare links".

[c.Tech]

They’re making the time shorter and shorter… soon all of our links could disappear.

They delated a file which had just 7 days without download.

My advice is get the files when you can, this will help keep them alive at the same time as not loosing them.

[megalomania]

Every service like this that has offered it for free has eventually gone to a pay to play model, and in doing so ruined itself. If rapidshare does that they will limp on for a bit, but then everyone will switch to a free alternative and rapid will implode.

The first signs are increasing restrictions that make things less and less user friendly. Anyone notice some of their CAPTCHAS are becomming impossible to read, or not even loading? The wait time goes up and up and up. It seems now you have to wait after each file, not just once you are over 10MB. Now free files are being deleted with increasing frequency. That will be their downfall, deleting the very content that has made them so popular.

[c.Tech]

Moral of the story? Don’t rely on free services such as Rapidshare to store your files.

EDIT: How far away do you estimate this is?

Its probably better off buying some web space or sharing by torrent and P2P, although the risk of getting caught is greater because those services allow a direct connection from your computer to someone else’s.

[c.Tech]

:eek: Rapidshare has dropped to a record low, I got files delated after 5 days of no download.

When they go down do you think they will keep the premium accounts active?

[Nihilist]

It is also possible that someone here is sending in complaints about the files. I know they will often delete things for that reason.

I have a paid account, so I can probably setup a folder for RS stuff. The only problems being that i'm not sure how long I will be keeping my account, and also that i'm not all that active here. Actually, thinking about it a little more, i'll just PM you my user/pass if you want.

[c.Tech]

It is also possible that someone here is sending in complaints about the files. I know they will often delete things for that reason.
That happens to the odd file but these files are definitely getting delated due to shortening of time, I can see this happening with my collectors account. Also the many files are getting delated from non-illegal content.

Every service like this that has offered it for free has eventually gone to a pay to play model, and in doing so ruined itself. If rapidshare does that they will limp on for a bit, but then everyone will switch to a free alternative and rapid will implode.
So I wouldn’t be relying on Rapidshare to keep your files safe, if Rapidshare goes down so do your files.

[megalomania]

I would conjecture that rapidshare will be hit with some European lawsuit brought about by a coalition of movie, music, software, and book publishers. This will be served by German stormtroopers busting down their server doors and taking the website offline. I am sure rapidshare will fight back in the courts, but once the website is shut down the mass exodus will begin. They will restore their servers incompletely that will frustrate more people, add additional restrictions to comply with copyrights that will be easily circumvented, and finally they will reinvent themselves as a pay to play service that no one will care about since they will have long since moved on.

[nocturnal shadow]

It appears RapidShare has been fixed or at least an attempt a fixing it has been made.

Upload-Limit: Unlimited! (Max. 100 MB per file! Split-Archives allowed!)
Download-Limit: Unlimited! (Some files have 100.000 Downloads!)
Happy Hours: Traffic-limits disabled. Unlimited parallel downloads. No download-tickets.

The RapidShare AG has taken the goal to set a new standard in webhosting, to better serve the needs of the community. A nearly endless scalable system has been designed with more than 1000 Terabytes of space and 80 Gigabit/s of internet-bandwidth. To perfect the system, we are right now setting up an office with more than 800m², where many supporters will help you to solve your problems, even by telephone in multiple languages. We hope to give you what you wish: More support, more space, more speed and more transparency.

Files to be deleted 45 days without download

[c.Tech]

That's the new rapidshare.com when this thread was started all there was only rapidshare.de, but I’m sure that rapidshare.com will sooner or later go down in the same way rapidshare.de did, unless they start using many commercials like the other file hosters they don’t stand a chance. (IMO)

[megalomania]

They may SAY they offer unlimited uploads, no deletion for 45 days, no traffic limits, etc., but who will test the veracity of their claims? Surly there has never been a website, or business, that has promised something, but failed to deliver…

[nbk2000]

They also used to say no files deleted until after 30 days of inactivity.

We KNOW for a fact that they've deleted files in under a week. :rolleyes: