I’m usually not writing about paid services here on Ghacks unless I’m personally using them or combine the review with a giveaway so that my readers can benefit from it directly. Recently I stumbled upon two commercial web services called DownloadNow located at downloadnow.net and Leechget, which is available at leechget.com.
These services are interesting even though they are paid service. They both basically act as a proxy to download from various file hosting services like Rapidshare, Megaupload, Hotfiles or Filefactory.
Internet users who download regularly from multiple file hosting sites may like the idea to use one site for all the downloads, instead of the file hosting sites themselves.
Leechpack is offering a short introductory video of their service. Users can paste links that point to supported file hosting sites in the Leechpack interface to let the service download those files from the file hosts. Once the files have been downloaded they become available to the user who is now able to download them from the site.
LeechPack: The superior choice in filesharing! from LeechPack on Vimeo.
Both services work similar in this regard, just copy and paste links into the form and download the files once they have been downloaded by the downloading service.
Now, both services are free to sign up with offer no trial transfer limit at this point, at least not when signing up directly on the websites. The cheapest accounts cost €3,99 at DownloadNow and 6,99€ at Leechget. Both come with traffic limitations, 5 Gigabytes plus 1 Gigabyte per day at DownloadNow and 60 Gigabytes and 30 Gigabytes disk space at Leechpack.
To put this into perspective, Rapidshare users get 150 Gigabytes of traffic for 5,99€ per month. But the main benefit of using a service like DownloadNow or Leechpack is not necessarily linked to being able to download a lot. It is the convenience of being able to download from all supported file hosting companies without having to fill out captchas or waiting for downloads to start.
Lets take a closer look at the supported services:
Leechpack supports Netloads, File Factory, Freakshare, x7, EasyShare, FileServeNew!, Rapidshare, Megaupload, Depositfiles, Megashares, Storage.to, Uploadbox, Uploaded.to, FileSonicNew! and torrent downloads.
DownloadNow in contrast supports hotfile, megaupload, uploaded.to, netload, easy-share, uploading, filefactory, depositfiles, megashares, filesonic and fileserver.
Some file hosting services are supported by both proxy downloaders. Leechpack unique is the ability to download torrents (which are seeded until a 1:1 ratio is reached).
So, who would use a service like this? Users who want to download files from multiple file hosting sites obviously come to mind. But it is also possible to use at least the Leechpack service as a seedbox for torrents. Then again, this comes at a price and I personally am not sure if users would opt in for one of those services, especially if they tend to download files majorly from one specific file hosting site.
Would I personally use one of the services? No, I do not think so. Mainly because I’m not download files from file hosting sites, or only rarely at most. Users who download from a lot of supported file hosting sites could consider it, especially if they are already paying the file hosting service directly.
What’s your take on this kind of services? Let me know in the comments.
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook or Twitter.Related Articles:
Mirror Fox Distributes Files To Multiple File Hosting ServicesUpload Files To Multiple File Hosting Services With Load2All
Opera Download Helper, Improves File Hosting Site Downloads
File Hosting Download Manager Mipony
File Hosting Upload Manager File & Image Uploader
I’d rather use JDownloader.
Have used both of these sites and still find Rapid Premium (or RPNet) much better. And cheaper!
I use put.io
I’ve tried Leechpack after reading the blog, honestly, i think i will keep it, it saves me from having the PC all night downloading torrents and they also have https links to files which i think somehow hides what i am downloading… correct me if i am wrong, i’ve got an email from comcast for downloading torrents.
And as for filehosts, is OK to have them all, sometimes you want a file that is hosted in one that you dont have a premium account for and waiting sucks.
I’d be more interested in learning if these sites have some kind of privacy protection built in. If they do, then that would be the #1 selling point for most people.
Hi, i am french man, and we have a law that cut off our internet when torrents used.
great information about leechpack.com i would like a free try, who do i speak to?
I highly suggest staying AWAY from LeechPack! I paid for a year subscription and it’s been problems ever since.
1) alot of times the file your telling it to fetch doesn’t register as an active file.
2) it recognizes the file but doesn’t fetch it or only fetches it 1/2 way and gives you an error (delete file)
3) it WILL fetch it but then when you try to download it to your PC from THEIR SERVERS it won’t go through and sends you to an error page
4) it downloads from their servers to your PC incredibly slow
So STAY AWAY from LEECHPACK!!!
I’ve tried LeechPack, Put.IO, and LeechDaddy and LeechDaddy is by far the best and cheapest. So, far I haven’t had any probs with LeechDaddy. I’ve had MAJOR probs with LeechPack and SOME probs with put.io (namely the zip/rar extracting probs whereas it would ask me for a password to extact the multipart files although no password was actually needed). LeechDaddy is only $2.50/month too!!!