Users who frequently or rarely download from Rapidshare on the other hand might prefer a solution that is directly integrated into the web browser.

Auto Free Rapidshare offers such a solution for the Google Chrome web browser. The extension basically removes all necessary steps after the Rapidshare file url has been loaded in the browser.

The extension will automatically click the Free User button, wait for the Rapidshare time limit to count down and start the download in the end.

This saves the user a few clicks and more importantly the hassle of checking whether the download link is already displayed on the Rapidshare page.

Auto Free Rapidshare can be downloaded from the official Google Chrome Extension gallery.

Firefox users can take a look at Automatically Download Files From Rapidshare In Firefox for a solution working in their browser.

Rapidshare AutoWait is a userscript that can be loaded in the Firefox Greasemonkey extension. It brings most of the benefit that is provided by download managers to the web browser. In short: It allows a user to open multiple Rapidshare links which get then downloaded sequentially without user interaction.

The script will automatically perform all required actions on the page after it has been opened in Firefox. It will also detect if a download is already in progress to loop the other Rapidshare downloads which are then started at a later time.

The script does detect network problems and handles other possible errors like expired sessions or the 15 minute limits as well. It is not a problem for the script to handle 10, 20 or even 30 tabs that all point to a file on the Rapidshare website. The only step that the script will not do is to close the tab once the download has been finished which is not that much of a problem though.

AutoWait is a very interesting option for users who download files regularly from Rapidshare. Check out our Rapidshare Search article for pointers on how to find links at the the file host. It is possible that the script will also work in other web browsers that provide userscript support such as Opera or Safari.

The tool accepts links to Rapidshare files which can be either pasted one by one or posted as a batch into the interface of the Rapidshare downloader. The tool will automatically display the added files in the list of downloads that are to be processed. There is only one further step that the user has to make before the downloads can be started: A one time configuration of the local download directory.

It surely cannot get easier than this. A click on the Start button will initiate the download of the first file in the list. The Rapidshare downloader will display the file name, status, download speed, downloaded size and total size of the current download in the interface. Completed files are added to the Files Finished list to provide an overview of the downloaded files to the user of the software program.

The wait time between downloads can take up to 15 minutes and the usual limitations apply. The software does not provide the means to reset the IP of the computer to be able to download additional files or to make use of premium accounts to use faster download speeds and experience less wait times and limitations.

The software (via Eches) can be downloaded from the developers website.

Rapidstack (via Download Squad) is a realtime Rapidshare Search Engine. What does that mean? Unlike many other Rapidshare search engines it will scan the links before they are displayed in the search results. Only links that are found to be working will be listed while all others will be excluded from the list.

The interface is making use of Ajax to display new results as soon as they have been scanned by the search engine. Rapidstack will display the amount of total links as well as the good and bad ones. Each search result displays the title, url and the amount of links that have been found.

The search results provide access to two functions. The first is to click on the title of a search result to visit the website that is linking to Rapidshare. The second is to extract all Rapidshare links on that specific page of the website. This will open a list of Rapidshare links which can be comfortably pasted into a Rapidshare download software.

It is interesting to note that Rapidstack seems to concentrate on websites that post links to Rapidshare unlike many other Rapidshare search engines that post direct links.

The Rapidshare downloader has been designed with simplicity and speed in mind. All you need to do besides pasting a few Rapidshare links into the download.txt document is to execute the main application rapiddownload.exe. That’s it: Rapid Download will do everything automatically from that point on. This includes checking if the files are still available on the Rapidshare website, scanning for the real download link, running down the wait countdown and finally downloading the files to the local computer.

The software program comes with zero configuration options at this point. This means no Rapidshare Premium account usage, no timers, setting a download path or anything else that might distract from the number one goal: Downloading files from Rapidshare.

Simply paste in your links, execute the tool and let it run until it is finished. Yes, it could do better with some configuration options which would make it more comfortably but if need to download files fast you might want to give it a try. Make sure to check out our Rapidshare Search article that helps you find files to download.

It is not yet another proxy if that is what you thought. The add-on merely lookups the IP of the Rapidshare download page and uses that to initiate the download. If the network administrator has only banned Rapidshare.com in the network then it will work.

If he did ban the IP range as well it won’t. Once installed the add-on adds a toolbar with an option to paste a Rapidshare link into it. Pasting the link into it and pressing the button next to the toolbar will change the url so that the IP is used for accessing the download page.

A Javascript window will be launched once the IP has been converted which will immediately display the download dialog. It seems to also be an excellent shortcut to download Rapidshare files even if the file hoster is not banned in the network.

The Firefox add-on is experimental which means that you have to log into the Mozilla website before you can download it. You find a list of Rapidshare Search engines by following the link.

The language can only be changed in the options once the application has been installed which means that users will have to find their way through the Russian installation dialogs. That’s not a huge problem though for users who have installed hundreds of applications in the past.

The two images below demonstrate how to change the language from Russian to English.

Some elements of the interface will remain in Russian though but that is nothing to worry about. A list of Rapidshare links can be added to the Rapidshare downloader by clicking on the + icon in the top navigation menu. Other options include the ability to simply use [CTRL V] to paste them into the program’s interface.

The downloader will automatically download the selected files from Rapidshare. It is possible to add proxies in the application but it can practically be left running in the background because it does not require user interaction after starting the downloads.

The article Rapidshare Search might help you find some interesting websites that contain links to files that are hosted on Rapidshare.

Cryptload is a software that makes it easier to download files from Rapidshare. The biggest advantage of this tool is that it can detect and automatically enter captchas on the Rapidshare website. Besides that it supports a tool called Router control which can reset routers to force a new IP address which in turn makes the downloads immediately available again getting rid of the wait timer effectively.

Cryptload can be configured to react on Rapidshare links that are posted to the clipboard which are then automatically added to the download queue. A log informs the user of return messages from Rapidshare and the downloads are neatly sorted in the download manager window.

The software supports several other file hosters besides Rapidshare including Megaupload and Netload with the possibility to add more hosters using so called plugins which are also available on the Cryptload homepage.

I would start by reading the Cryptload tutorial first which explains most settings and options. The newest version of Cryptload can be downloaded from the homepage as well. Unfortunately though it links to Rapidshare.

A user commented that he would recommend the Universal Share Downloader instead which would work much better than Rapget. I decided to give it a try and after fiddling around with the Russian homepage I was able to download and install the Universal Share Downloader which reminded me a lot of Rapget.

The application itself has an English interface with only a few icons left in Russian language. It works basically like Rapget, you add links manually to the application which in turn begins the download immediately or queues it when the maximum of downloads have already been started.

The major difference that I was able to spot is that the Universal Share Downloader is displaying the Captcha from sites like Rapidshare as a popup prompting the user to enter the chars to start the download.

This means in turn that it is not possible to queue downloads and leave the computer for a long time because you will always have to enter the chars of the captcha.

HTTP, FTP and Socks Proxys are supported which is necessary for sites that have a country or download limit per IP. This is absolutely important if you want to download several files from Rapidshare for instance.

If something goes wrong an error message is displayed in the lower right corner of the application. My second download from Rapidshare for instance returned the error:”Server report: Wait 20 Minutes” which meant that I either had to wait or use a proxy to be able to download the file.

About the website of the developer. As I said earlier it is completely in Russian making it hard to figure out what to do. The first entry of Universal Share Downloader is the full program with all plugins and languages, the second is only the executable without all of them. If you choose the second one you will have to download plugins and languages separately to be able to download files from certain sites.

The first download link was broken but I was able to download the file from the second one entitled ac3filter.net.