Whirlpool

The popular media hosting website ImageShack just launched a new service that lets you download torrent files onto their servers. When the download is complete, you can download the files from ImageShack via an http link.

Bittorrent service in BETA - tor.imageshack.us/tor

You can read the full story here - torrentfreak.com/imagesh...bitorrent-080405

They seem to have run out of capacity atm ... but they are adding more so thats good.

this cannot possibly last.

they will be paying for a tonne more bandwidth

You have to join Imageshack, no way Jose. 15 gigs a month, pfft I do that in a week.

Its "free" :)

Use it while you can.

snoopinc writes...

Its "free" :)

Use it while you can.

Why bother, I would much rather prefer the real deal not some size limited fancy schmantzy service http link download.

UNI high speed link + this = :D

Well until they ban it like RS,Megaupload and all the other "good" sites ;).

I am not suprised more companys
dont offer this kind of service

Thou with this website offering it
you can be sure the rich greedy anti home
piracy companys will be all over this
soon .

Anon http websites like megaupload
and rapidshare.de/rapidshare.com
are very popular aswell

I can see the advantage of using http
its UPLOAD ONCE , share MANY , download FAST

Once the torrent has been downloaded it will not keep seeding and so your ratio won't be near 1:1. ImageShack.us say they will offer a seeding option on premium accounts soon. I have hit 2MB/s downloading a torrent on ImageShack.us servers. Another pointer is there is no upload speed setting. You cannot change the upload speed.

snoopinc writes...

Use it while you can.

Which seems to have been about 5 minutes. Doesn't work now, closed on the same day you posted.

Cugel writes...

Which seems to have been about 5 minutes. Doesn't work now, closed on the same day you posted.

Probably abused to buggery. Leechers. :D

Still open to old users :)....downloading something now.

Luckily open for me still.

interesting

wonder how this will turn out

Ok, just to re-confirm

Basically this service means:

1. I upload a torrent file
2. Imageshack downloads it for me
3. The file is downloaded to their server
4. Imageshack tells me the file is on their server, and all I do now is to download it via their server?

So essentially, I don't need to use a BT client at all?

thats correct

Now on imageshack:
NOTICE!
April 5th, 2008 - Due to an unexpected rise in usage this weekend, we're in the process of adding more capacity.

I wonder why....lol

Ostenisbly now working now for late comers. Now I shall do some slumming in public trackers (shudder) to find something to test it with.

I can see this service being massively abused. People can get around the 15GB limit of bandwidth + space by creating multiple imageshack accounts.

snoopinc writes...

I can see this service being massively abused. People can get around the 15GB limit of bandwidth + space by creating multiple imageshack accounts.

Yeah, I think they might come up with a rule...can only download a certain amount in one day for each IP or something...

But anyways, enjoy while you still can :P

Surprising, it uploads while it downloads O_o.

snoopinc writes...

15GB limit of bandwidth + space

my account has been enabled with torrents today.

i only have 5gig of space (which is used up)
and 10gig of bandwith

It seems uploading while downloading is limited to 20 kb/s

Yes.

I have one in progress, fairly slow to pick up peers - probably limited in how many connections you can make.

That is going to absolutely smash their bandwidth.

Ratio on the torrent I tried ended up 0.185. To play fair, you'd really have to screw down your download speed.

Max download speed 9999 KB/s.

Thats nearly 10 Mb/s.

Out of interest, how long do they retain the file?

This is great for downloading those torrents that take ages and go at like 2kb/s. Let it run for ages and then download from their servers at 200kb/s :)

Has anyone noticed any glitches in video files that they've downloaded using this?

It's probably just me...but I just thought I'd ask just to make sure.

Just out of curiosity, what average speed are people getting? Can you use a download manager?

I'll be sticking to usenet and private torrents,but it sounds interesting.

Cheers

Dave

Tested this a few days ago. Verdict = pretty useless.

For a start, they kill uploads as soon as the torrent finishes downloading. This virtually rules out:
* Using it to keep up a good ratio on your private sites
* Using it as an initial public seed to hide your IP

It seems to work perfectly fine if you're just looking to leech off public torrents and don't care about helping others download the torrent.

Also, ImageShack state pretty clearly that they will actively enforce any DMCA violations that they are made aware of.

Basically, unless you're looking for a way to leech from generously provided legal torrents without giving anything back, this is the service for you.

Testing this at the moment

I am finding this good for two main reasons,

1)I am very low on quota at the moment, this allows me to use my friends or works internet to download finished torrents to my usb drive which is saving me heaps of quota.

2) It allows me to download torrents and access them from any computer once they are finished, which greatly helps with 1) but also means that I can start a torrent from any computer and download the finished file at home also.

Devils writes...

Has anyone noticed any glitches in video files that they've downloaded using this?

Funnily enough, the file I tested did indeed have a couple of hiccups.

And I just got the original .torrent file, loaded it into uTorrent, and pointed it at the file - and yes, it is corrupt. Pretty useless then.

Cugel writes...

Funnily enough, the file I tested did indeed have a couple of hiccups.

And I just got the original .torrent file, loaded it into uTorrent, and pointed it at the file - and yes, it is corrupt. Pretty useless then.

Corrupt? Or watermarked in transit by ImageShack? </conspiracy theory>

Since you're downloading the completed torrent from ImageShack server using HTTP, there isn't any hash verification to check for corruption, so its quite possible that the corruption is occurring during the IS.us -> you part, not the Torrent -> IS.us part.

(ImageShack are using Transmission as a backend for the service so corruption problems shouldn't be happening while the torrent is active.

May've been because I used Flashget, but since they have non-resumable servers, it might've stuffed it up.

Cugel writes...

May've been because I used Flashget, but since they have non-resumable servers, it might've stuffed it up.

I also used Flashget to download from the HTTP link...

I tried not using Flashget but it didn't work, out of a 400mb file, only 15mb was downloaded then said "download complete". 0_o

I'm just trying another one, it jumped about 100MB instantly shortly after starting. Have to wait and see whether that has stuffed it.

Download via the browser, everything worked fine.

Anyone know of other cheap paid services like this?

Or point me to an existing thread (didn't know what to search for)

InternetGhost writes...

Anyone know of other cheap paid services like this?

Or point me to an existing thread (didn't know what to search for)

Mods get narky if people start naming names on WP, so you'd probably be best off Googling "seedbox" or "torrent seed box hosting".

Basic plan for one such host I've heard is reliable gets you 15GB storage quota, 200GB of torrent transfer data (download from them is free) and lets you download two torrents at a time. Cost is $20/month.

Good option if your ISP is throttling torrents, need some security for uploads or just like the idea of sharing as much as you can.

Alex12 writes...

Basic plan for one such host I've heard is reliable gets you 15GB storage quota, 200GB of torrent transfer data (download from them is free) and lets you download two torrents at a time. Cost is $20/month.

Hmm, i think i'll be sticking to usenet.

do seedboxes work exactly the same as the imageshack service?

i.e. point the box to a torrent file and the service downloads and seeds it for you?

Mushrooms writes...

i.e. point the box to a torrent file and the service downloads and seeds it for you?

the imageshack service is a limited seedbox service. You can't seed, just download.

Hot off the press news.

Free is still free

10 GB Disk / 15 GB Bandwidth: $10/mo
25 GB Disk / 50 GB Bandwidth: $25/mo
100 GB Disk / 200 GB Bandwidth: $75/mo

InternetGhost writes...

the imageshack service is a limited seedbox service. You can't seed, just download.

oh i meant the seedboxes, not the imageshack service :)

Mushrooms writes...

do seedboxes work exactly the same as the imageshack service?

i.e. point the box to a torrent file and the service downloads and seeds it for you?

Dedicated torrent seedboxes do, but most seedbox hosts use something like TorrentFlux to provide a full web UI. (TorrentFlux is a web based front end for the BitTornado client, but a fork called TorrentFlux-b4rt will work with Transmission and Azureus and has NZB support for Usenet downloads as well).

ImageShack are using a custom built web UI which is very basic.

Knight of Cydonia writes...

Free is still free

10 GB Disk / 15 GB Bandwidth: $10/mo
25 GB Disk / 50 GB Bandwidth: $25/mo
100 GB Disk / 200 GB Bandwidth: $75/mo

Do the paid plans include seeding torrents or just leech and stop?

They have limited the free accounts.

You get 5GB space and 10GB bandwidth and each month the bandwidth resets.

snoopinc writes...

They have limited the free accounts.

You get 5GB space and 10GB bandwidth and each month the bandwidth resets.

Wasn't that always the free account plan?

InternetGhost writes...

Wasn't that always the free account plan?

Bandwidth used to be 15Gb

Anyway the "download bandwidth" is HTTP bandwidth (When you download a torrent it doesnt count, only when you grab the finished off the imageshack server)

it doesn't seem to download with a download manager =(
so, i cannot que downloads and am face with downloading large files thru my browser, this is certainly not a practical solution.

Dyde writes...

it doesn't seem to download with a download manager =(

I used Flashget and it worked fine...

I disabled the "Still download from non-resume servers" so it wouldn't screw up my downloads...works fine...

Problem is that you need to download the whole thing in one go, you can't "pause" it and continue later...

Devils writes...

I used Flashget and it worked fine...

Problem is that you need to download the whole thing in one go, you can't "pause" it and continue later...

Using GetRight here and it works fine, and i can also "pause" and "resume" :)(if i get a page error i just get a new download url and replace the old one and GetRight picks up where it left off.

Devils writes...

I used Flashget

how do you get it into flashget?

i cannot seem to get the links to work in flashget

EDIT* i still don't get it =(

møbius writes...

Using GetRight here and it works fine, and i can also "pause" and "resume" :)(if i get a page error i just get a new download url and replace the old one and GetRight picks up where it left off.

Thanks for that, I need to try that. :P I'm not really wanting to download my file all in the one go as I'm on a 512k connection and it would take quite some time.

Dyde writes...

how do you get it into flashget?

i cannot seem to get the links to work in flashget
Ok, well...
- click the download button on imageshack
- select which file you want to download
- DON'T left click it the link to start the download, RIGHT-Click and select "download with Flashget" on the menu that pops up.

Alternatively, you can open flashget and drag the HTTP download link from imageshack and drop it in flashget.

yeah, tried that.

it just downloads a 8kb useless file

Dyde writes...

it just downloads a 8kb useless file

When you click download on imageshack, you need to open the folder that it has created to access the files for download. I'm guess the 8kb useless file you downloaded was the HTTP for that folder and not the actual contents of it.

Devils writes...

I'm guess the 8kb useless file you downloaded was the HTTP for that folder and not the actual contents of it

nope it was filename.avi within the folder

Dyde writes...

nope it was filename.avi within the folder

That's odd, I don't know then, probably just you.
Try another torrent and see if it's works.

has anyone tried this service at uni yet? :D

Mushrooms writes...

has anyone tried this service at uni yet?

Admins probably know all about it now, blocked or people busted is what will happen.
Remember WP is a broadband/tech forum :)

InternetGhost writes...

Admins probably know all about it now, blocked or people busted is what will happen.
Remember WP is a broadband/tech forum :)

Still working where i study :P.

how fast are u grabbing the files off a uni connection?

2mb/s?

whats the benefit of this over free sites?

HenDrix writes...

whats the benefit of this over free sites?

What do you mean?

This Imageshack service is free...

HenDrix writes...

whats the benefit of this over free sites?

I don't think there are any other free sites offering this service. Seems to be pretty good though! It got the torrent file at 120kb/s on average.

HenDrix writes...

whats the benefit of this over free sites?

It isn't immediately obvious.. I guess if bittorrent is being blocked/interfered with at your location, or you're really miserly with your upload.

Also it is much easier to avoid getting caught downloading illegal stuff. Anyway its not like people would be doing that in the first place :P

Incase anyone would like to know... 2 days ago I could download at 800kb/s (max) from imageshak. Now it seems to be stuck at maximum 25kb/s (even with flashget).

Sounds like they are really struggling now.

25kb/s?

oh man :o

I'm back up to full speed now :-)

Hmms, I wonder if they're smart enough to just cache *ahem* "popular" torrents so they don't have to download them over and over and over again?

Would save a bucketload of bandwidth, IMO. Faster for the users too.

Spaztikdude writes...

I wonder if they're smart enough to just cache

That's a good idea...but I think every time you upload a torrent for it to download, it goes on a different server each time. (Eg:img667...img682...etc)

So I think it might be rather difficult to cache...

what speeds in kb/s do you get speedsonic?

I wonder if cable might bring it down any faster :o

So what is stopping someone from uploading illegal content on there? Do they have a screening process or anything of that nature?

BitTorrent isn't illegal itself, so they narcs (theoretically) just can't shut it off. So they (imageshack) probably work on the "we will remove any unathorised stuff, you just need to tell us" theory.

This whole thing completely kills the P2P concept. It gives leechers a perfect opportunity to download everything and contribute nothing back. I'm betting that ImageShack doesn't seed until at least a 1:1 ratio once they've downloaded it the file.

The point of BitTorrent is to allow multiple people to share the file. If you download the file like this, you're not giving anything back at all. That's just wrong.

Stu-It writes...

The point of BitTorrent is to allow multiple people to share the file. If you download the file like this, you're not giving anything back at all. That's just wrong.

I also wouldn't download anything copyrighted/illegal Imageshack scream pretty loud about (Copyrighted Material, Pornography, Harassment) use in all their terms of agreement.

Stu-It writes... 

The point of BitTorrent is to allow multiple people to share the file. If you download the file like this, you're not giving anything back at all. That's just wrong.

Just reload the torrent file on your local machine, open up your bittorent client with it then stop the client immediately, put the imageshack torrent you downloaded from the website into your torrents folder, and voila, you are seeding!

You dont have to be a leech with this service, and it is very easy to be a good seeder, I use this method to keep my ratio high.

Well...

Imageshack is down now. That didn't take long :P

nodeADSL2+ writes...

You dont have to be a leech with this service, and it is very easy to be a good seeder, I use this method to keep my ratio high.
I bet you're the only one then. I can see most people using this as a way to avoid uploading.

Stu-It writes...

I bet you're the only one then. I can see most people using this as a way to avoid uploading.

Thats what usenet is for ;-)

nodeADSL2+ writes...

Just redownload the torrent file,

You may as well just download it yourself then. I can upload five times faster than imgaeshack does, so it'd probably come down quicker for me than them as well.

Cugel writes... 

You may as well just download it yourself then

I meant reload the torrent file into your own computers torrent client. sorry for the bad english :)

Cugel writes... 

I can upload five times faster than imgaeshack does, so it'd probably come down quicker for me than them as well

This service is best for those who want to share or access bittorrent downloads from a central location with any computer that has an internet connection, it is also great for people who do not want to leave their computer on for days or even hours waiting for slow torrents to finish.

Since everything you seem to get is obviously well seeded, and you only ever use one computer in one location then yeah you are right then, the service is not for you and you dont need it.

come back on imageshack!

Mushrooms writes...

come back on imageshack!

Heh, it just times out here :P
Traceroute to imageshack seems a bit screwy. After it gets to the imageshack server, it keeps repeating... Anyone else notice this?

Eg.
10 244 ms * * imageshack.demarc.cogentco.com [38.104.134.18]
11 195 ms * * img245.imageshack.us [38.99.76.207]
12 225 ms * * img245.imageshack.us [38.99.76.207]
13 280 ms * * img245.imageshack.us [38.99.76.207]
14 196 ms * * img245.imageshack.us [38.99.76.207]
15 190 ms * * img245.imageshack.us [38.99.76.207]

Mushrooms writes...

come back on imageshack!

Imageshack works fine...

Don't know what you're on about. :S

It was timing out last night if you weren't aware.

Its working now again

Mushrooms writes...

It was timing out last night if you weren't aware.

Oh I didn't know, worked yesterday morning. I dind't use it that night though...

I can see Telstra users being all over this, with their counted uploads and people banning their IP's...

Looks interesting for old torrents that have hardly any seeders.

It's also good for those of us who want a file faster than we normally could... some of us can seed back the file to 1+ ratio later, but need/want something in a fraction of the time.

I'm certainly going to enjoy using this...

Can't see how it'd be any faster. There's the bittorrent download itself, which during my tests wasn't too special, and then there's the http download afterward.

It is faster if you can't have your computer on all the time. And if you need to schedule within certain hours (off-peak, etc.). Also, bittorrent and http download speeds are much higher than if I did the download myself, since we have to cross the Pacific.

So say I'm downloading a 4.2GB torrent - that would take me more than 3 weeks, because I wouldn't have my computer on during all off-peak hours, and due to the terrible speeds.
Imageshack would take a day to download it via Bittorrent. I could download from their http most of the files within a week.

Looks like new accounts don't have torrent downloading ability anymore.

Went to create another account ( tisk tisk :P) and says "Please choose a subscription plan to continue".

Oh well!

Woot, big waste of time this is, dumps me with a nice 3gb of corrupted zip. :P

anyone still using the service and downloading with a download manager?

I can't seem to get it working anymore.. just downloads a htm file

i don't want to download using the browsers download thingo

Mushrooms writes...

I can't seem to get it working anymore.. just downloads a htm file

Which means that it's probally telling you either...

A) "Zip's have been temporarily disabled on this server"
B) "As of xx:xx:xx this file is being downloaded by xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx *And we will lock you out of the file for hours and hours because of their policies, and bad coding*
^^ I got B) ALOT.
C) They decided to kill download managers for some odd reason, even though they only let in 1 connection at a time.

I just had to use a single thread download in FF. 'Tis a shame.

Sure, it's not problem free, but hey... You get more than what you pay for

I used to love imageshack for uploading pictures, but it seems that in the last two months that their site times out or has a ton of errors. Anyone else experiencing this?

Dunno about errors, but I've never been able to use a download manager to open more than one thread to download off of Imageshack torrent.

And I don't bother with the zip, cos I never have several GB of quota sitting around. :P

This is craptacula.. now Imageshack is giving you a grace period to download the file before it gets deleted :\

Mushrooms writes...

This is craptacula.. now Imageshack is giving you a grace period to download the file before it gets deleted :\

Beginning next week, abandoned torrents which have no start/stop activity in a period of 10 days will be sweeped out.

Automatic deletions will be executed starting next Tuesday May 6th, thus allowing members to have the chance to plan accordingly.

If you do not want a torrent to be deleted, simply hit the 'stop' button next to the torrent to reset the timer.

This is only intended to clear out unwanted/abandoned/forgotten downloads.

So all you have to do is hit the "STOP" button before 10 days are up and the torrent/s get another 10 days :). So you will NEVER lose a torrent if you keep resetting the timer :P

yay! thanks mobius! :D

I was so panicky this morning that I instead hit "START" and the timer also reset!

/Phew for the time being :)

møbius writes...

So all you have to do is hit the "STOP" button before 10 days are up and the torrent/s get another 10 days :). So you will NEVER lose a torrent if you keep resetting the timer :P

HAHA! Thanks for the tip and it actually works. :P

Thank god. But wouldn't this be increasing their bandwith usage, as users had to redownload files? Or is the bandwith limit for free accounts low enough that they would rather handle 10GB of data flowing around rather than having 5GB sitting stagnant?

lol new accounts can download again xD!

Sent in feedback about the expiration thing being applied to in-progress downloads, and now they removed it for in-progress torrents. :) So even if you've got a super slow torrent, you don't have to stop it and start again to reset the counter.

Pretty fast support, imho. But I guess maybe someone else had already sent in a feedback report on that too? :P

Didnt see this until just now. Guess ill bring this topic back to life :p

Imageshack must be out of there mind. They are going to blow several Terabytes of bandwith per day on this and get nothing back from the free accounts atleast.. I dont see there motive

Connection Status Active
Download Percentage 37%
Estimated Completion 01:03
Download Rate 3645.0 kB/s
o_O

Bait and switch. It probably go to rapidsharesque unusability except for paying customers.

uh wow...

imageshack seems to have stopped their free service ;\

i have stuff stored on there for download and now it says "to enable your account please choose a plan"

at least allow people to download the stuff they had on there BEFORE

Mushrooms writes...

imageshack seems to have stopped their free service

that is ok.

i kept getting corrupt downloads and only used it for a week.

I had a couple of torrents stored on there (old ones!) and would like to just download them off from their servers.

I mean, at least provide users "download bandwidth" to get the files off their servers! Some of the files are old and getting them again would be very difficult!

:(

Mushrooms writes...

imageshack seems to have stopped their free service ;\

It must have stopped some time in the early morning. I had 5 files ready to download during offpeak and only one downloaded :(

The one that did download was full of errors, when loaded into utorrent, it was only 82% complete with blocks missing everywhere. (Image shack reported that "The file has no errors")

As for their prices, they are a rip off! $10 for 15GB...you can buy 90GB of Astraweb Usenet for $25. They don't even seed your files.

Mushrooms writes...

I mean, at least provide users "download bandwidth" to get the files off their servers! Some of the files are old and getting them again would be very difficult!

If you reeeeealy want them, just buy a months subscription.

ugh.. yeah.

I sent them an email to ask if it were possible to add download bandwidth only.. hope something positive comes out of it.

otherwise... $10 :(

My accounts are still fine ;).....yes accounts its not a typo :P (4 accounts :D....guess im an abuser?)

Hi XYZ,

The recent change was applied to a subset of users who were knownto have multiple accounts within ImageShack's beta torrentservice. Please choose a primary account you would like to use, and wewill re-apply the the free limits to it.

Best regards, XXX

ROFL, ok.. fine I'm guilty :)

Aww you have 4 accounts and its still fine! I have.. uh, nevermind :)

Mushrooms writes...

The recent change was applied to a subset of users who were knownto have multiple accounts within ImageShack's beta torrentservice. Please choose a primary account you would like to use, and wewill re-apply the the free limits to it.

wtf... i have ever had one account and mine was canceled.
I'm sending an email now.
Umm, who do i send the email to mush?

Okay, i'm just sending one using the 'Customer Service' form.

yeah i dunno... kinda annoyed but hey, what can you do about it :\

i emailed them and hope they'll re-instate one of my accounts if not another 2.

got data on the other accounts i really want and will pay $10 per account to get them next month

learnt my lesson here: don't put all your eggs into one basket!

though on a different note, i found out peerharbour or harbor provides a paid service similiar to that by imageshack.

here: reg.imageshack.us/conten...l&q=customer

peerharbor here: www.peerharbor.com

Any sort of service which can upload too (for a small fee)?

Knight of Cydonia writes...

Any sort of service which can upload too (for a small fee)?

peerharbor allows seeding.

InternetGhost writes...

peerharbor allows seeding.

Something possibly even cheaper? (yes, I am a stingy bastard).

Knight of Cydonia writes...

Something possibly even cheaper? (yes, I am a stingy bastard).

Find some free hosting and run torrentflux. You will most likely end up getting your hosting account terminated as torrentflux uses a lot of resources and theres also the legal factors.

Imageshack as re-enabled one of my accounts. Others are still frozen :(

Oh well... bastards!

What kind of speed does everyone get downloading off their servers?

I get between 200KB/s - 300KB/s.

I get around 120kB/s - 200kB/s.

Anyway, four accounts? That's a bit much. Two accounts I could understand... and could be attributed to siblings/spouse/etc.

If you dont finish a download, can you come back and finish it later?

I would assume if you pause it in a download manager you can resume the download. However, you are not permitted to use more than one download thread per file...

i got a account, but i haven't worked out how you search for torrents?

hendrix you need to go onto a torrent site and upload the torrent file into imageshack.

I've used this on occasion recently because of this result:
http://home.arcor.de/bananas02/imageshack.png

But it occurs, could they be fudging their upload figures to deflect criticism?