I already mentioned earlier today that I like to use the JDownloader software to download files from file hosting services. It is more convenient, especially since it saves the download queue so that downloads can be resumed at any time. Captchas on the other hand still need to be filled out. That’s a problem if you need to leave the computer for a longer period of time, or if you do not want the captchas to disturb you from other computer activities.

Ghacks reader KoalaBear suggested to use the plugin Captcha Trader for automatic captcha solving. The service is offered as a plugin for JDownloader, MiPony and a handful of other popular downloaders. It basically allows the user to either buy credits or solve captchas in advance so that captchas in JDownloader are resolved automatically by the plugin.

Here is how Captcha Trader works.

• Visit the Captcha Trader website and create an account.
• Switch to the Plugins directory on the site and download the plugin for your software and operating system. I’m going to demonstrate how to add the plugin to JDownloader. Readme files are included that explain how the plugins are installed.
• Extract the folder and copy it to the \JDownloader\jd\captcha\methods\ folder.
• Edit captchatrader.properties with a text editor and add your username and password to the file.
• Restart JDownloader.

The plugin will not show up in JDownloader. It won’t work right away since you do not have any credits in the beginning. That is, unless you have bought credits on the site. 10000 credits on the site, good for at least 1000 solved captchas cost $6 Dollars.

Instead of paying, users can earn credits by solving captchas on the Captcha Trader website. A click on Earn Credits displays a captcha every 50 or so seconds. Solving the captcha correctly will award credits to the account.

Users earn seven credits for text recognition captchas, and three for image recognition captchas. It costs ten credits to solve text captchas, and five credits to solve image recognition captchas.

It is furthermore possible to cash out at anytime. 10000 credits equate $1.

Once you got enough credits, captchas are automatically resolved in the software you use to download files from file hosts. The captcha should not pop up anymore which is great if you need to work full screen.

Easy Share is one of the few file hosts that offer ftp access. Users need to create a free account at the file host as the username and password of that account are also used as the username and password of the ftp connection. All they need to do after account creation is to point their ftp client to upload.easy-share.com and upload the files from that client. The ftp server supports resume. Users need to open the Easy Share website before 24 hours have passed to accept the ftp uploads in their account profile.

The file host supports remote uploads as well. This means that users can paste urls that point to files in the Easy Share upload script. The file host will then try to establish a connection to those servers and download the files from there. The maximum file size is set to 200 Megabytes currently.

Easy Share

Kiloupload is different from Easy Share as it does not offer free space on its own servers. It distributes uploaded files to various other free file hosts including Rapidshare, File Factory or MegaUpload. The service can be used from its web interface or by pointing a ftp client to ftp.kiloupload.com. Users need to create an account by providing an email address and password. The email address is the username for the ftp server and will also be used to inform the user once the files have been uploaded to the other file hosts.

The advantage of Kiloupload over Easy Share is that it is possible to upload files to multiple file hosts at once-

Kiloupload

Do you know of other file hosts that support free ftp access? Let us know in the comments.

The file upload service works by selecting the mirror sites that the file should be uploaded to in the first step. After that the file has to be uploaded to the Gazup servers. It is alternatively possible to pick the remote upload option instead which makes it possible to paste urls that point to files in a form which get then downloaded by Gazup. Once the files have been uploaded either way they get distributed by Gazup to the selected file hosts.

This is shown visually on a new page listing the current upload status of each individual file host. The download links are shown when an upload has finished successfully. This link can be copied and pasted as usual.

Gazup does offer special sharing links for forums, websites and friends. It is a simple code that can be embedded in the context. It does link to the main Gazup page where the user has the option to select one of the available file hosts mirrors. This is excellent for users who regularly upload files for forums and websites and want to make sure that the files are still available after some time.

via Download Squad.

Premium users who never had to endure the Rapidshare captchas received a ten Gigabyte per day download limit after the changes which was now reduced to four Gigabytes per day during a so called transition period where Rapidshare will increase their server capacities to meet the increased demand.

This in turn could mean that they will raise the limit to ten Gigabytes once the transition period is over. Most premium users will probably not realize the change but it will definitely affect Rapidshare power users who download many Gigabytes per day from the file hoster.

A selection of Rapidshare Search Engines may help users who are trying to find files that are hosted at Rapidshare.

The basic interface is something that I really like. Users can upload one or multiple files from their computer or from an url to File Dropper. There is unfortunately no transfer progress bar which makes it quite a guessing game as to how long the transfer will take before it completes.

Once the transfer is finished you will be presented with an url that is pointing to the file or files that you have uploaded. This url can be send to friends or posted on the Internet so that other users can download the files from that url.

Speaking of which, downloads were rather slow when I tested the service. The download speed never exceeded 10 Kilobyte when I tried it. Could be a temporary glitch or simply that their servers are not capable of handling such a large number of requests at the same time.

The service did get quite some coverage in the past day and is probably overrun currently. Time will tell if new servers will be added or if the service stops existing like so many others before. Another problem that I encountered was that the website lacks information on how long they keep the files on their server.

The disadvantages don’t justify this procedure in my opinion. First of all it is always a security risk to upload files to a third party even though you might take extra precaution and encrypt the files. Secondly it probably does not look that good if you send your business associate a download link to a free host. The alternative would be of course ordering webspace and paying a monthly fee for it.

If you already have a website with enough hard drive space and transfer limit you could use that. Single files can be simply uploaded to a new directory which should be protected with .htaccess to keep prying eyes away from it. The file could be downloaded as often as needed and deleted when the operation has finished.

Setting up ftp accounts would be even better but probably requires more knowledge and could be out of proportions if you only upload new files every now and then. The main disadvantage is of course that you would have to pay a monthly fee to host your files and that you can’t make the file available for a larger audience if you have a hosting account with restricted bandwidth.

I still prefer this method because it feels secure to control the files on your own server.