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.

Today while starting up JDownloader I noticed a strange behavior. The program prompted to pick a language first, and then showed up with an empty download queue. That was unfortunate since I had some downloads left in the queue from the other day.

I first thought that I had just installed a second instance of JDownloader, but discovered a moment later that the new installation seemed to have overwritten the database file containing the file download queue.

I knew that JDownloader was creating backups of the database in regular intervals. I checked the backup folder of the JDownloader program folder to find out that the program had saved more than a dozen database backups in the past months.

This was interesting in itself as it can be seen as a privacy issue by some users as it is possible to restore the download queue with the help of the backups.

The last database backup file is database.zip. To restore it you need to do the following. Quit the JDownloader program. Make sure it is completely terminated and not sitting minimized in the system tray.

Open the database.zip file and extract the contents (database.properties and database.script) to the main JDownloader/config/ directory. Replace the two database files listed there.

This restores the download queue. You may still be missing a few downloads though depending on the time and day the last backup was created by the file downloader. In my case, the last backup had been created four days ago which meant that I lost a few file downloads that I added after that date.

The program can monitor the Windows Clipboard for file hosting links to automatically suggest them in its Linkgrabber module. While that’s handy for sending individual file links to the downloader, it turns out to be everything but comfortable if multiple links need to be added to JDownloader, especially if those links are not displayed fully on the website.

JDChrome is an extension for the Chrome browser that integrates JDownloader into the browser. The extension adds a JDChrome entry to the Chrome right-click context menu when links are selected.

The context menu offers two options:

• Add to Queue – This adds all files on selected links directly to the download manager queue of JDownloader.
• Add to Grabber – This adds the links to the Linkgrabber module where they are checked but not directly processed.

You can send single links or multiple links to JDownloader. For multiple links you need to highlight all links first before you can send them to the program. Individual links are send directly with a right-click on the file hosting link.

The extension loads a page with settings after installation. The very same page becomes available from the Wrench > Tools > Extensions menu.

It offers some configuration option, among them a hotkey that can be pressed to send links to JDownloader and a double-click feature to do the same.

Both options and the context menu integration can be disabled or enabled on the settings page. Here it is also possible to select to start downloads right away instead of sending them to the Linkgrabber first. Autostart is enabled by default for double-clicking links and using the hotkey do send links over.

Google Chrome users can install JDChrome from the official Chrome Web Store.

Update: The JDChrome extension has been discontinued. Chrome users can install the JDownloader Integration for Google Chrome alternative instead.

I had to find a userscript or add-on to download all those links at once with as little effort on my side as possible.

I found lots of suggestions, Flashgot, Down Them All, external programs, copying from the source which all did not work the way I wanted them to work, or would not really save my time.

The Firefox add-on Copy Links turned out to be exactly the kind of extension that I was looking for. The extension adds two options to the Firefox right-click menu: Copy selected links and copy all links.

Both options are more or less self-explanatory. Copy selected links copies all website addresses that are currently selected on the active page, which can be all if you press Ctrl-a on the page or selected everything on the page manually with the mouse.

Copy all links copies all links that are found on the active page to the Clipboard. Please note that this includes links to images or other pages as well. The good thing about that is that JDownloader will only pick up links pointing to supported pages which means you end up with a filtered list of links in JDownloader’s Linkgrabber listing.

The extension is obviously not only useful if you want to grab links to add them to JDownloader. Maybe you want to copy all links on a page for bookmarking or archiving purposes, or send them to a friend. If the links are in close proximity on the page it may speed things up. Say you want to copy all article links on Ghacks’ frontpage to send them to a friend via email. You could repeat the right-click, copy link, paste in email client job multiple times or use the extension to copy everything in one go.

Firefox users can download the Copy Links extension from the official Firefox add-on gallery at the Mozilla website.

The file hosting management tool RSFind! Mod for the Firefox web browser offers a handy solution for users who regularly download files from file hosters.

The main feature of the add-on is link identification. It supports dozens of different file hosters and displays all links pointing to those hosters in a browser overlay. A click on the icon in the statusbar of the browser scans the page and spawns the link list afterwards.

Here it is then possible to select none, one or multiple links and either copy the link information to the clipboard or open them in separate tabs in the browser. The clipboard option is handy for users who work with tools such as JDownloader to download files from file hosting websites.

Extensive options are available to customize the functionality and process. The add-on fixes obfuscated links automatically and extracts links in links (for instance if an anonymizer is used in front of the actual link). Users can remove those searching options or add new options like searching for links in plain text as well.

It is furthermore possible to remove file hosting services so that their links will be ignored by the scan. Handy if you do not want to use a specific file hosting service or only want to use some (for instance if you have premium accounts at some).

RSFind! Mod is a handy add-on for users who regularly download files from file hosting websites.

RapidWareX was recently updated with the ability to stream audio and video directly from the Rapidshare servers. This new feature is currently only working with video files that have been encoded with the Divx codec and audio files that have the mp3 file extension. The video can consist of a single avi file, a collection of uncompressed and unencrypted rar archives or a collection of HJSplit files.

The Rapidshare Downloader requires a working Rapidshare account to download or stream files from the file hoster. That’s a bit unfortunate and a distinct disadvantage in comparison to other Rapidshare download managers such as the Rapidshare download manager JDownloader.

Links can be added to RapidWareX in various ways including copying pasting them directly in the application, pasting html from the clipboard or loading links from files that are stored on the local computer system. Quite a few options are available that make the downloading process more comfortable. The program can retry downloads, display the remaining download traffic, offers a remote interface and secure links over https.

The program offers a build in Rapidshare search module which will redirect the requests to a website that is displaying the search results. RapidWareX is a free download for the Windows operating system and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 to run.

The download manager has several benefits over manually downloading files from Rapidshare. The first is that you can simply add as many download links to it which will all be stored and processed one after the other. The image verification is filled in automatically by JDownloader which means that you can keep it running in the background all the time without having to actively manage the downloads.

Download links can be automatically added by making Jdownloader observe the clipboard. It offers a reconnect feature which has to be configured, an unpacker, a password list, selecting a favored server from each hoster and much more. There are several options that need some explanation though before you can start using it.

You should first realize that JDownloader needs Java, so make sure that is installed. After unpacking the application you need to execute the file JDownloader.jar to start the installation where you select a download location for the files. Files will be automatically updated during the setup as well.

Before you start to begin downloading files you need to accept the Terms of Service for all file hosters that you want to download from. Open the options, click on Hosts in there and check the TOS of the file hosters.

The language can be set to German and English but even if you select English it looks like a mix of German and English. Not to hard to figure out stuff because the most important elements are well translated.