File sharing service mail ru. What is a file sharing service or file hosting?

File sharing service. I am almost sure that you have visited such a site at least once in your life. It’s especially easy to get to it if you need to download something and you type it into a search engine. Then you click on one of the first results and see there exactly the file you need. You click “Download”, but everything turns out to be not so simple.

First, the service offers you to purchase a premium account in order to download faster and without delays, then it shows about 30-60 seconds of advertising, and only if you have endured to the end, you finally receive that coveted working link to download the desired file. Painfully familiar, isn't it?

So, what I described is a typical file hosting service. This is a site created for the sole purpose of sharing files. Any user can register here and upload their own file, and then receive a link to it. Then you can distribute this link somewhere and receive cash incentives from the service for downloading the file.

It would seem that they will let you download the file for free, and they will pay you more money for downloading it, what’s the catch? But as you remember, such a site is certainly monetized by its owners so as not to go to a loss. What types of monetization can be seen on a file hosting service?

For example, this is an offer to purchase a premium account every time you try to download something from a file hosting service. Many people actually buy such accounts because they are usually inexpensive (a couple of dollars), but they turn off advertising and allow you to download a file faster, as well as download it.

On free plan all these possibilities are not available. And also, if you are already going to download the file just like that, you will see another way to monetize:

Advertising. If you are already going to download for free and have already managed to refuse the premium tariff 5 times, then before downloading you will face another test: 30-60 seconds of waiting, during which you may be shown some kind of advertising.

Actually, different file hosting services introduce various restrictions to download files using the free plan. For example, you may be asked to enter a captcha and if you enter it incorrectly, you may not be given a second chance. Either you will have to watch the advertisement for a minute again, or they will simply tell you that you are allowed to make 1 attempt per hour and now wait for your next chance.

Perhaps it might seem to you that I am strongly criticizing file hosting services. No, because their owners also need to somehow cover the costs of maintaining such sites, because they simply need a huge disk space to accommodate the heap of files that users will upload to the file hosting service.

How can an ordinary person make money on a file hosting service?

Another way to monetize such a project is to encourage users to actively distribute links to their files, and the file hosting service itself undertakes to pay you for every 1000 file downloads. Payment depends mainly on the file size. For example, you will get more money for a heavy file. The reward range for 1000 downloads is approximately $1-50. It must be said that such a system of sharing profits with active users Not available on all file hosting services.

Another way to earn money is to attract referrals and encourage them to work on the service. You will earn 5-20% of their income. However, all these methods are gradually dying out.

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Usually file hosting services have some restrictions that allow you to save more free space on hard drives. Firstly, if the downloaded files for a long time lay and no one rocked them, they can simply move away. Secondly, the service may specify an upper file size limit. For example, 30GB or 100GB.

History of scam exchangers

There is also a lot of negativity associated with such sites. In particular, many such resources began to be created with one sole purpose - to deceive people and defraud them of money. What dirty methods did the owners of these resources use?

For example, such a site may have everything you need. At the same time, in fact necessary files no, but the script works as if they are. You will, of course, be glad that you searched the entire Internet and finally found necessary information, but it was not there. You will be asked to enter a phone number, and then, as if by chance, they will say that it would also be nice to send an SMS to such and such a number.

The picture is completed by the fact that new comments are added below every minute, as if from real people, and all the reviews are positive. In general, this is not the only method that is used to deceive people, so be careful!

How you can use file hosting

Some services just offer file storage for your website. The more gigabytes you store, the more you pay.

In this screenshot you can see an example of one such service. As you can see, it's practically free file hosting, the tariff is very favorable.

Most file-sharing services subsequently turned into cloud storage. Such a site makes money in a different way. It gives any registered user some disk space. Typically 5-20 gigabytes. To increase this limit, you need to buy paid packages gigabyte with monthly or annual payment. The most popular cloud storages:

Yandex.Disk

Today it is perfect solution for storing various important files. Imagine if one day HDD your computer will break down? What are you going to do? If all your important data is on cloud storage, you will be protected.

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Let's say I have a file that I want to transfer over the Internet. If you need to send it to one person, you can do this via email, Skype, Viber or via a social network.

But for this, the file must be small in computer size and must be sent personally, so to speak, from hand to hand. But this is not always convenient and not always suitable. Sometimes you need to send something large (more than a gigabyte). Or you need to provide access to information not to one person, but to a group of people whom you do not know personally. And sometimes you just want to download data somewhere so that you can retrieve it at any time.

That's why there are sites called file hosting services. You can upload information from your computer there for free and retrieve it from there at any time. Or receive a link that you can pass on to other people or publish somewhere (on your or someone else’s website, page in social network etc.).

What is a file hosting service

A file hosting service is a special hosting for files where anyone can upload data for free for storage and exchange over the Internet.

There are such sites as paid and free. But usually this is some kind of hybrid: you are given some volume (often quite impressive) in free use, but if you need more space, then it costs money.

Nowadays the name “file sharing” is not used so often. They are increasingly called buzzword"Cloud" or "Disk".

Verified free hosting

If you have mail on gmail.com, then you already have such storage. To open it, you need to click on the button at the top right and select “Disk”. If there is no email on Google, you will have to register.

The rules are the same: if there is mail on Mail, then there is also a cloud. To access it, you need to click on the “Cloud” inscription at the top (on the strip of blue color). If there is no mail on mail.ru, then you will need to get it by registering in the system.

Other . There are a whole bunch of others free hosting. But they are a little less popular and most of them are not as good. Yes, and there are no guarantees that some new service with a very attractive offer it will work for a long time.

What is better not to use

There is a category of file hosting services that I would not recommend using in any form - do not upload or download anything there. These are sites where there is a lot of “yellow” and often outright fraudulent advertising.

Where can you encounter them?. Download links from these services can often be found on various resources with something free: programs, books, etc. Indeed, in addition to the fact that you can place absolutely any data on them, they provide the opportunity to earn money: for each download, the person who posted this file receives some small money.

How to use file hosting

The principle is simple: open your Internet disk and upload data there. After downloading, they will be stored there and can be downloaded from there at any time. Or open directly from the disk.

And if a file needs to be transferred to another person or group of people, then in the settings you can make it public. Then the system will provide a link to it, through which anyone can download it. And with this link, do whatever you want: send by mail, Skype, Viber, publish on a website or social network.

Usually, understanding uploading and downloading is not difficult - everything is intuitive. But, just in case, I wrote on this topic.

If your file is small, you can usually send it by email. But what if your file exceeds the permissible size for sending email attachments? Now, of course, you can transfer such attachments via Skype, but if this is not possible, then there are special services, which are called file sharing services. The bottom line is that you open such a service in a regular browser, download the file you need there, you are given a download link, you pass this link to the desired recipient, you can also by email. By opening the link, the recipient can safely download your file. This is convenient, and some of these services are free; in some places there are volume restrictions, but first things first. Let's look at what file hosting services are available on the network.

Yandex Disk

If you already have Mailbox in this system, then just go to the “Disk” tab in your mail. If not, then open yandex.ru, near search string Click “More” and select “Disk”. This service allows you to use up to 20 GB of space for free. If you need more, you will have to pay. To add files to Yandex. Disk, click on the yellow “Download” button or on the dotted frame “Download files”.

We select the file we need and wait for it to load. If you need several files, click “upload more”. On the right, when loading a file, drag the switch to “On”. Copy the link.


You can select any file on your Yandex. Disk and enable access to the link, then copy it and send it to recipients. You can also share the link on social networks.

Here, without registration, you can temporarily place your file, not exceeding 200 MB in size. This file will be stored for up to 7 days. For those who need a one-time file transfer, it is very convenient. When registering in the system, files are stored for up to 45 days, there is also paid services service. Select “Browse”, then “Download”. Copy the link to share.

It is very convenient to transfer any file without registration. Free up to 100 GB. Files up to 5 GB are stored after downloading for 90 days, files over 5 GB are stored after downloading for 20 days. Click on the green “Select file” box, download, receive a link and send to the recipient.

There are other file sharing services on the network, as well as cloud storage services, which also allow you to exchange download links. But storage facilities are not just exchangers, they actually store your files on their server. Let's say the famous Dropbox - cloud storage. By the way, Yandex. The disk is also more related to storage, because... The files will be stored there after downloading until you delete them yourself. But because this resource is now very popular among users, in this article I decided to consider it. If you have questions about the article, you can ask them in the comments. Until next time.

A file hosting service, file hosting or file hosting is a service that provides users with space for their files and constant access to these files from the World Wide Web, usually via the HTTP protocol. This service allows its users to conveniently “exchange” various files.

The user uploads a file to the file hosting server from a special page (most often from home page service), and the file hosting service gives this user a permanent link to the downloaded file, which the user can publish on blogs and forums, send via e-mail or distribute through IM systems. Any other user by clicking on the received link can download the file uploaded by the first user.

File hosting providers make money mainly in the following two ways:

  • Displaying advertisements. Many file hosting services introduce some kind of artificial pause after the user has requested a file before starting to download it. During this pause (approximately 45-120 seconds), the user is shown various advertisements, and only then the file is given.
  • Sales of so-called premium accounts. This is a tracing paper from English: “premium account”. For a few dollars a month, a user can buy an account for himself with the right to download files without delays and without advertising. In addition, it receives some additional benefits that are not available to ordinary users, such as the ability to download files in multiple streams using resuming.

Some file hosting services also have partnership programs to increase revenue and attract new premium users. The scheme for all such affiliate programs is approximately the same: a user registered in the affiliate program uploads his file to the server. This file is assigned a unique URL. Then the user tries to place links to his files on a large number of resources.

These are, as a rule, warez sites and forums, spam and ICQ mailings. For every thousand unique downloads of a file, the file hosting service pays that user money. Income ranges from $1 to $7,500. This is exactly the maximum that was seen on the ShareCash service. At the same time, than more file in size, the more it “costs”. For example, for 1000 downloads of a file with a size of 1-4 MB, the user receives $2, and for 1000 downloads of a file with a size of 250 MB or more - $50.

The leaders in this file sharing market are Depositfiles, Hotfile, RapidShare, LetItBit and MegaUpload. There are many other fairly well-known file hosting services. Thus, the iFolder file-sharing service is extremely popular in post-Soviet territory.

iFolder is one of the largest Russian file-sharing hosting sites. Owned by Agava. According to a representative of this company, at the beginning of 2010, iFolder's revenue from advertising was about 200 thousand rubles per day. At the beginning of 2010, the service hosted about 1.5 terabytes of data, and approximately 30,000 files were uploaded every day.

Files stored on the service are written using its own file system and with a high degree of redundancy. At the beginning of 2010, more than seventy servers physically located on the Golden Telecom data center sites were used to provide file sharing services.

In 2010, the suspension of iFolder and its subsequent restoration after the intervention of Dmitry Medvedev caused a noticeable resonance among Russian Internet users.

On March 17, 2010, as part of operational search activities to search for child pornography posted on iFolder.ru, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs arrived at Golden Telecom and expressed a desire to seize all equipment for examination. The removal of the equipment was avoided, but the police turned off and sealed the iFolder project servers. On March 20, 2010, as a result of the intervention of President D. Medvedev, iFolder resumed its work again.

A file hosting service is a service that provides users with a place to store files and 24/7 access to them via the HTTP or FTP protocol. Such resources allow you to simply and conveniently exchange data between people from different cities and countries.

In order to use the services of a file hosting service, you need to special page upload files using the site’s prompts, after which the service will provide you with a download link, which can be placed on your website, blog, social network page, or sent by email.

Why do we need file hosting services?

Using file sharing services has many advantages.

Here are just a few of them:

  • Saving disk space. Despite the fact that the capacity of produced storage media is constantly increasing, many free space can not be;
  • Complete independence from the storage medium, since access to files stored on the file hosting service is possible at any time and from anywhere globe if you have an Internet connection;
  • Convenience in distributing your information and the presence of an affiliate program on file hosting sites. If the information you upload is interesting to people and has a certain popularity, you can get some reward for storing and downloading it.

However, there are some disadvantages to using file hosting services:

  • Restrictions on the file storage period, which are applied by most file hosting services. If it has not been downloaded by at least one user within 2-3 months, it is automatically deleted;
  • Low speed of downloading files to the service and back;
  • Limited disk space for storing files. Most file hosting services allocate an average of 5 to 20 gigabytes of free space on the server.

How to make money on file sharing services?

The file hosting companies themselves make a profit in two ways. The first is displaying advertising. Before starting the download, a user who does not have a premium account watches a certain advertising video. The second way is to sell those same premium accounts.

But how to make money on file sharing services? ordinary users? First of all, you need to find a file that will be popular.

The more downloads he has, the more money You'll get. The file format can be anything from popular songs and videos to games and programs. It is important to be the first to post the current one on this moment file without missing the so-called " wave of downloads».

All services have different payment rates, however, on average it ranges from $5 to $20 per thousand unique downloads.

IN general outline The scheme that allows you to make money on file hosting services is as follows:

  • Search current file in all kinds of sources and his approval for the role of the posted one;
  • Writing interesting and detailed description to file;
  • Registration on file hosting services. It is best to register in several services at once, since some sites require mirrors when posting news;
  • Registration in services that allow you to post images (for example, Radical, Imageshack and others);
  • Placing links to the downloaded file on various sites.

The final point is the most important part of the process, without which it will be impossible to make money on file hosting services, since it is not the fact of posting a link that is important, but the number of clicks on it.

It is best to post materials with a link to the file on the most popular sites. However, as a rule, the more popular the site, the higher its requirements for the design and content of such materials. The design must be competent and beautiful so that the person who sees them wants to download the file.

Before adding news or other material about a file posted on a file hosting service to the site, be sure to read the rules for adding it, otherwise it simply may not be published.

The most popular file hosting services and conditions for making money on them:

DepositFiles

One of the most popular file hosting services on the Internet. Since most users are accustomed to downloading interesting files it is from this that you should pay special attention to this service

When you register on the site, you will be awarded a bonus amount of $5. Earnings are accrued per 1000 downloads and directly depend on the file size. Minimum size The downloaded file is 1 megabyte.

Except normal download can be used FTP protocol and downloading files located on Hotfile, Megaupload and Rapidshare (if you have a premium account).

The main advantage of using DepositFiles is that the rate at which you are paid for downloading your files varies depending on the number of people who downloaded the file. When certain indicators are reached, the file hosting service will pay you $10, $15, $20 and even $30 for 1000 downloads.

Minimum threshold for withdrawal of funds to PayPal wallet or WebMoney is $10, and when you accumulate more than $40, the reward is withdrawn automatically:

Letitbit

A very popular file hosting service. The download page is extremely well thought out and intelligently encourages the user to purchase a premium account.

The storage period for files depends on their size. A file up to 50 megabytes in size is stored for 30 days from the date last download, up to 500 megabytes in size - 25 days, and a file up to 2500 megabytes is stored for 10 days from the moment of downloading. Payment is made for 1000 downloads, and its amount depends on your rating on the site.

Rewards are paid to accounts in PayPal system or WebMoney. Keep in mind that the preliminary rating calculation occurs during the day, and the final rating occurs at night, so the amount that was awarded during the day may change in the evening.

Letitbit has a special affiliate program: the site pays 25% of the income of attracted webmasters.

If you have your own website, you can take part in the webmaster incentive program: a person who switches to Letitbit from your website and purchases a premium account will bring you $0.1 in profit.

Turbobit

The total size of uploaded files is limited to 200 megabytes for unregistered users, and for those who have registered - 5 gigabytes. Quantity and maximum size There is no limit on individual downloadable files.

The storage period for the downloaded file is 30 days for registered users, 7 days for unregistered visitors and 60 days for owners of a premium account, which in this system is referred to as “turbo access”.

Keep in mind that from the point of view of making a profit on Turbobit, paid access is only interesting for the increased storage period of files; all other advantages are necessary for downloading files. Minimum volume The downloaded files are 1 megabyte.

Cash payments from Turbobit are made only to an account in WebMoney system. The period from submitting an application for payment to receiving the money is 4-5 business days. Minimum amount for payments - $10. There is no need to wait until there are 1000 downloads, since you can apply immediately.