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| RapidShare | |
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| Type | Aktiengesellschaft |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | Cham, Switzerland |
| Key people | Bobby Chang (CEO) & (COO) |
| Slogan | Easy Filehosting |
| Website | rapidshare.com rapidshare.de |
| Type of site | One-click hosting |
| Registration | optional |
| Available in | English |
| Launched | October 10, 2006 |
| Current status | active |
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RapidShare is a German owned one-click hosting pay- and free-service (with limitations) website that operates from Switzerland and is financed by the subscriptions of paying users. Rapidshare is one of the world’s largest file-hosting sites with millions of files stored on its servers. According to Alexa, Rapidshare.com is currently the 12th most visited website.[1]; Rapidshare.de has been declining in rank since April 2008.[2]
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History
RapidShare has two different websites, but both sites claim to be entirely different organizations and entities. The original site is RapidShare.de, which uses the German top-level domain ".de", and the organization has its central office in Cham, Switzerland.[3]
On October 20, 2006, RapidShare announced that "Unfortunately all drives of RapidShare.de are full right now".[4] A new website, RapidShare.com was set up in an attempt to transfer usage from RapidShare.de to RapidShare.com.[citation needed] When the new Rapidshare.com was launched, holders of "Premium" accounts at the time on RapidShare.de were able to use both the RapidShare.de and RapidShare.com, until their account expired. It is not possible, however, to use a RapidShare.com account on the German site.
Website updates
On June 3, 2008, RapidShare redesigned their website. Premium users can now download up to 50 gigabytes of data within 5 days; doubling the quota from the original 25 gigabytes per 5 days.
On June 26, 2008, the maximum download per premium user was further changed from 50 gigabytes per 5 days to 10 gigabytes per day. At the same time Rapidshare limited the number of IP addresses that can download from one account to 1.
On July 2, 2008, the maximum download limit was modified yet again. Each premium user gets 10 gigabytes of download bandwidth per day but any unused bandwidth is saved or rolled over to the next day. There is a limit of 50 gigabytes total that can be saved through this method. There is no further need to enter captcha codes in free service. In addition, free-users can now upload and download bigger files (up to 200 megabyte).
On July 21, 2008, the maximum download limit was modified due to excessive traffic. Each premium user gets 4 gigabytes of download bandwidth per day with a maximum of 30 gigabytes that can be accumulated if not used.
On July 30, 2008, the maximum download limit was increased from 4 gigabytes of download bandwidth per day to 5 gigabytes.
On September 2, 2008, "a Premium Account allows the download of 10 Gigabyte (10.000.000.000 Byte) per day."
Operation and services
The site allows any user to upload files of up to 200 MB (at rapidshare.com) and up to 300 MB (at rapidshare.de).[5]The user is then supplied with a unique download URL which enables anyone, with whom the uploader shares it, to download the file. No user is allowed to search the server for content; all files have to be downloaded by following a given URL. However, there are unofficial search engines that allow users to search for published RapidShare-Files. [6]
RapidShare stated on April 2008 that it had 240 gigabit/s of Internet connectivity and 4.5 petabytes of storage for users.[7]
Non-paying users are required to wait 30 to 134 seconds, depending on the filesize, before the download starts and their download-speed is limited to 62.5 kB/s (= 500 Kbit/s).
Registration and payment allow benefits such as unlimited download-speed, download of several files simultaneously, queue-skipping, the facility to interrupt and re-start downloads, up- and downloading bigger files up to 2 GByte, allowing Free-Users to download your files with Premium privileges ("TrafficShare") and to store up to 500 GB of data that can't expire. Every premium account is limited to a maximum of 5 GB download-traffic per day, but the user is allowed to "save" traffic up to a maximum of 30 GB and can then spend the saved traffic all at once. You can also trade "RapidPoints", you earn when someone downloads your files, into additional download-traffic.
There is now a rewards program that allow you to trade "RapidPoints" for a selection of products depending on the amount of points you have collected.
Issues
Some ISPs intentionally block sharing sites like RapidShare so as to avoid legal issues due to the propagation of pirated copyrighted material.[citation needed]
On 19 January 2007, news broke that German collections agency GEMA had claimed to have won a temporary injunction against both RapidShare.de and RapidShare.com. "The latter is said to have used copyright protected works of GEMA members in an unlawful fashion."[8] To date RapidShare has claimed not to have any knowledge of the content uploaded by the users and of not being in a position to control the content. Through its injunctions the District Court in Cologne GEMA had now however made it clear to the company that the fact that it was the users and not the operator of the services that uploaded the content onto the sites did not, from a legal point of view, lessen the operator’s liability for copyright infringements that occurred within the context of the services, the spokesman added.
CAPTCHA
RapidShare has used many CAPTCHAs during its history - letters read from an image or script by the user and then inputted in an attempt to avoid automatic or "bot"-assisted downloads.
Earlier version included of 4 letters and numbers distorted by wave filter. Users had to recognize and type all characters.
In the first half of 2008, an updated version of this CAPTCHA was in use. It consisted of up to 7 warped alphanumeric characters (though usually still 4), each with a dog or a cat printed over them. The user was instructed to type in the 4 letters (although technically some "letters" are actually numbers) with the cat on them.
On 22 June 2008, the site changed the CAPTCHA to consisting of a tri-dimensional grid, with symbols in bas-relief.[9]
After 3 failures to enter the CAPTCHA download access is blocked.
On July 2, 2008 Rapidshare has canceled the CAPTCHA completely. According to the site's info "By eliminating the captchas we simplified the use of RapidShare's free services significantly. In addition, free-users can now upload and download bigger files (up to 200 megabytes). Anyhow, to protect RapidShare from congestion caused by automated downloading, we limited the maximum download speed for free‐users to 500 kilobits per second. To compensate for that, they do not have to wait anymore until starting a succeeding download. Premium-users now profit from more flexibility regarding the download volume: It used to be limited to 10 gigabytes per day and can be "saved" now to a maximum of 50 gigabytes. As a consequence, the volume that was not used is transferred to the following day automatically, up to a maximum of 50 gigabytes. If the complete download capacity is used up during one day, the premium-user is able to save another 10 gigabytes the following day".[10]
See also
References
- ^ "RapidShare.com - Site Information from Alexa". Retrieved on 2008-08-15.
- ^ "Rapidshare.de - Site Information from Alexa". Retrieved on 2008-07-20.
- ^ Central office in Cham, Switzerland: Reuters.com website. Retrieved on April 13, 2008.
- ^ "Archived front page of RapidShare.de on 25 October 2006 by Archive.org".
- ^ "RapidShare: premium services (secure)". Retrieved on 2008-01-24.
- ^ "5 Rapidshare Search Engines".
- ^ RapidShare: Retrieved on April 13, 2008.
- ^ "Heise Online". Retrieved on 2007-01-31.
- ^ New captcha system (death to cats and dogs)
- ^ "RapidShare.com - News". RapidShare (2008-07-07). Retrieved on 2008-08-05.
