Why Mega? EDIT: And where else?

[Sid]

Just out of curiosity

I know it has a DMCA takedown procedure. Does stuff get taken down?

And I know a lot of DDL sites delete files if they're not accessed for a month or two. Does Mega never delete?

[entaled]

A lot of DDL sites do a captcha, a wait time, and have harsh speed limits for free users (50kb/s anyone?) followed by lengthy wait times between downloads. Those are strong deterrents in my mind, and mega does none of that. Occasionally a link goes dead, but this community we have is great and there's never been much delay in getting a re-up. New releases typically end up as a torrent shortly after anyway, so it's really a foot-in-the-door measure for getting stuff out there.

[Iwata]

For me it's because Mega lets me upload things super quickly where I sometimes don't have enough bandwidth to initially seed torrents as well as I'd like. I've been uploading things to a free Mega account for 2+ years now and I've never had anything taken down or reached the storage limit.

[Sid]

OK, thanks for the explanations, now I have new question.

Back in the day direct download sites used to throttle free download speeds to get people to pay for "premium" speeds, and they used to delete files that weren't downloaded after a month. Mega doesn't appear to do that.

Are there any other sites like Mega? Even small ones. If Mega were closed down tomorrow where would upload to next? It's always a good idea to have a backup plan.

[Iwata]

OK, thanks for the explanations, now I have new question.

Back in the day direct download sites used to throttle free download speeds to get people to pay for "premium" speeds, and they used to delete files that weren't downloaded after a month. Mega doesn't appear to do that.

Are there any other sites like Mega?  Even small ones. If Mega were closed down tomorrow where would upload to next? It's always a good idea to have a backup plan.

That's fair enough, there are literally dozens of direct download sites out there these days, but all have their pros and cons.  Uploaded.net, rapidgator.net, FileFactory, 2Shared, Turbobit, UploadRocket, Zippyshare -- none of them have the nice secure end-to-end encryption of Mega though or are generally as nice to free users.

The only other site I've had consistently good experiences with as a free user aside from Mega is probably MediaFire.  Otherwise we might have to shop around for a niche one without too much attention should something ever happen to Mega. Even the more storage-oriented ones like Dropbox or Google Drive might be options.

[bsg4you]

If anyone wants to quickly share something for a limited time via BitTorrent without posting a torrent to TPB, it's easy:
1) create the torrent with qBit/uTorrent/etc
2) look at the torrent's properties in the client
3) a long string called a Hash should be listed; copy it
4) paste the hash after "btih:" - magnet:?xt=urn:btih:[your copied hash]
e.g. here's the link for The Force Awakens Rifftrax x264 - magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7332A221D8F19507CE39704CB916F65B00F17914
5) post the magnet link to this forum and it should work fine

[Id0]

Mega also uses cloud storage.

[DoctorChimera]

I prefer to use Mediafire more than anything, honestly.

[Moe]

If anyone wants to quickly share something for a limited time via BitTorrent without posting a torrent to TPB, it's easy:
1) create the torrent with qBit/uTorrent/etc
2) look at the torrent's properties in the client
3) a long string called a Hash should be listed; copy it
4) paste the hash after "btih:" - magnet:?xt=urn:btih:[your copied hash]
e.g. here's the link for The Force Awakens Rifftrax x264 - magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7332A221D8F19507CE39704CB916F65B00F17914
5) post the magnet link to this forum and it should work fine

While posting it to TPB is preferable for visibility and longevity reasons, you can quickly post a hash using this bbcode:

Code:

[hash=HASH]text[/hash]

[hash=7332A221D8F19507CE39704CB916F65B00F17914]The Force Awakens Rifftrax x264[/hash]

result: The Force Awakens Rifftrax x264


Obviously that only creates the simplest of magnet links.  If you have a link with additional fields, you can use the magnet code:

Code:

[magnet=text]magnet link[/magnet]

[magnet=The Force Awakens Rifftrax x264]magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7332a221d8f19507ce39704cb916f65b00f17914&dn=Star+Wars+VII+The+Force+Awakens+2015+1080p+Rifftrax+6ch+2ch+x264&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fzer0day.ch%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fexodus.desync.com%3A6969[/magnet]

result: The Force Awakens Rifftrax x264



By the way - I see a lot of people putting links in code tags.  That's not a requirement here.  Simply pasting them raw or embedding them in a [url] code lets people click them without the need for a copy/paste or right click.

[1D10T]

No need to signup with MEGA if you use Brave, just click "download through your browser", works with files over a GB.