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As a Nexus One user, the modding community on XDA is probably the single greatest thing on the planet when it comes to my Nexus One, without you guys, the entire Android platform wouldn't be as great as it is now.
In an effort to give back to the community, and help other nexus users, I'm here to offer free, unlimited (virtually) hosting to any and all nexus one developers. Gone should be the 4shared and mediafire links, non direct downloads will hopefully be a thing of the past! I have spare space and bandwidth, and I want to use it to help people.
If you are a Nexus, or even just an Android, developer, please, send me a PM and I can give you a subdomain of my facepwn.com, as much bandwidth as you can use, and plenty of space. This isn't only file hosting, I'll happily give you MySQL databases, shell access, anything (within reason) that you need. Completely free, on my VPS, not shared hosting.
Just drop me a PM and I can set your hosting up today/tomorrow.
Wow, thanks bro. =)
Nice work thanks bro!!!
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Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
That is way cool. Let's hope you get a lot of requests from Devs, because I can't stand rapidshare and mediafire downloads.
Way to give back, man. Cheers.
Just want to say I've got some hosting too I can spread around
Not VPS, just a standard bluehost hosting package - but I do have unlimited bandwidth/storage etc paid through the next 11 months and am not currently using for anything.
I was thinking about making a similar post but ya beat me to it
I'll be glad to help out also, even if just as a secondary mirror. Just hit me up w/ a PM or email! Wildmonks is currently using it as a mirror and it beats the hell out of rapidshare etc
same here. we'll give you ftp access at androidoverdrive.com
just drop a line and we can hook you up. we have forums too and since the staff is knowledgeable we can help provide support for your rom as well
whoisthedrizzle said:
Not VPS, just a standard bluehost hosting package - but I do have unlimited bandwidth/storage
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They don't allow file storage/sharing like this.
Ryjabo said:
They don't allow file storage/sharing like this.
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Hm, I'll have to check my ToS again, maybe shoot them an e-mail. I was under the impression it wouldn't be an issue.
Edit: Ah, I see the "Backup Storage" clause. Seems easy enough to workaround as it's not being used explicitly for that. I do have a site in the works up on the main domain, could even put some type of placeholder up if that's all that's needed to say it's not being used "exclusively and explicitly" for backup storage.
OMG how many more of these do we need? This also isn't anything to do with Development so shouldn't a Mod move this to general?
cool! good job! may God always bless you!
nopenope said:
OMG how many more of these do we need? This also isn't anything to do with Development so shouldn't a Mod move this to general?
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OMG, how many more ingrates do we need? This isn't anything to do with being helpful so shouldn't a Mod move this to garbage?
You apparently don't understand. Take CM6-a1 for instance, I provided a mirror for just the N1 version on my own hosting to help out, and I served over 1Tb of bandwidth on a single file within a week. Now extrapolate that over all the Roms out there, and you're looking at 100s of terabytes of bandwidth a month. Spreading that load out over multiple servers, data centers and countries keeps speeds high, costs per person lower and allows for continual service (aka, redundancy).
So, kindly, shut it if you dont understand or appreciate why someone offering a service such as this is nice.
whoisthedrizzle said:
Hm, I'll have to check my ToS again, maybe shoot them an e-mail. I was under the impression it wouldn't be an issue.
Edit: Ah, I see the "Backup Storage" clause. Seems easy enough to workaround as it's not being used explicitly for that. I do have a site in the works up on the main domain, could even put some type of placeholder up if that's all that's needed to say it's not being used "exclusively and explicitly" for backup storage.
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Too much traffic to a download and they wont like it.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Does anyone ever torrent this stuff? I'd download crap and leave the torrents going 24/7 if someone had an android tracker.
If I knew anything about trackers and had time, I'd take up some of the offers for free hosting and start one, but I don't have either time or expertise...
nopenope said:
OMG how many more of these do we need? This also isn't anything to do with Development so shouldn't a Mod move this to general?
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Enough to get rid of all of the stupid mediafire, rapidshare and 4shared links. I hate using those sites, and would rather see everyone be able to give direct links I can easily download on my phone, and that are fast.
Way cool Man!!!! Thanks for this!!!!
Well, I feel that XDA has given a lot to me since I became addicted to Android and I feel like giving back to the community. I want to offer free hosting to the devs here for their ROMs and kernels. I have several sites that I own and several hosts as well as a dedicated server here at home on its own dedicated line. Speeds for the server I own are 50 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up. The hosts that I have are around 10 Mbps up and down. I'll even allow devs to run their own site on a subdomain from my site unless you want to purchase your own domain. Please feel free to PM me if you are interested!
I'd like to duplicate the offer. I'd be happy to mirror ROMs, kernels, themes, whatever, and sites are fine. I have one 150GB unlimited-bandwidth GoDaddy account, so it ma or may not be as good as the OP, but if you want several mirrors it might help. Also, if you want to get your ROM/kernel/theme onto the dedicated Android ROM index on the server, just PM me. I have the pages for the Inc and EVO right now, with every other rooted phone soon and tablets and WinMo phones after that.
Look here for more information on this topic:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=10887615
DesireC said:
I'd like to duplicate the offer. I'd be happy to mirror ROMs, kernels, themes, whatever, and sites are fine. I have one 150GB unlimited-bandwidth GoDaddy account, so it ma or may not be as good as the OP, but if you want several mirrors it might help. Also, if you want to get your ROM/kernel/theme onto the dedicated Android ROM index on the server, just PM me. I have the pages for the Inc and EVO right now, with every other rooted phone soon and tablets and WinMo phones after that.
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codybear said:
Look here for more information on this topic:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=10887615
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Yup. Cody is right. You can not use a GoDaddy account for file sharing unless you are on a dedicated server.
We have a space available as well. Check signature to see site.
Sent from my Green Rom Project HTC Glacier on Tap a Talk
http://www.greenromproject.com/forum
Apparently no one reads or listens to what happens. haha.
i will duplicate this offer too
codybear said:
Apparently no one reads or listens to what happens. haha.
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Yup, they like to be in denial.
Okay this is still like a twinkle in the eye so don't get carried away, but I've noticed that not all CM7 derivatives are setup to work correctly with Cyanogen's update servers, and I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons for that which I won't delve into. So I wanted to start working on a server that developers could quickly give either a mirror link to or upload to so that anyone who's building a ROM can have somewhere centralized to point downloads at and users of said ROM can easily retrieve the update. As I said this still little more than an idea that I've had bouncing in my head so don't expect anything huge or soon.
Okay so two things - does anyone have any input to that happening? And does anyone have any suggestions for how to best approach this? Any one have any experience with doing something like a large OTA update so we can figure how to minimize the information needed by the phone and therefore the download size for each phone?
It's a good idea, but for something like that to work you would need a server or hosting with a decent amount of bandwidth. That costs money, significantly less than in the past since the cost of website hosting has gone down a lot in the last few years. I have not seen any complaints about megaupload either.
Not trying to be a dream killer. It's a good idea.
Sent from my ERIS GSBv2.1 using XDA Premium App
Haha not dream killing - that's why I posted the question. I have some server space now, but its shared hosting so I see your point on the bandwidth and they'd probably start yelling about the hard drive space because all of those "unlimited" hosts get upset when you consistently host lots of files without buying a VPS.
Good point and noted, I'll have to keep pondering.
Also, workshed submitted his vendor tree to CM so I believe when that goes through then we would be on the supported devices list.
Sent from my ERIS GSBv2.1 using XDA Premium App
Yes, I'm complaining.
I just wanted to know if there's a specific reason why people would rather choose a server like Hotfile, fileserver, megaupload that spam people to purchase premium accounts. Is there a restriction on mediafire for some people? Do we not like servers that doesn't spam users?
Do some devs have a revenue share agreement where they get paid for postings files to these spam servers, just in case one of us decide to get these premium accounts?
I know it's not really THAT big of a deal. Most of the time you wait your 45 seconds, click and download. Most of the time.
But sometimes the "session" times out and you need to re-queue.
And sometimes the server "believes" you're downloading something else, so you need to finish the previous download or upgrade to premium. Good luck when that happens.
Or sometimes the file "isn't there". Please upgrade. What?
So I just wanted to know, is there a reason why we use these spam sites?
The biggest reason that people do this is because the sites doing this are free. Most people (myself included, and I'm not a dev) are cheap / broke / not lucky enough to have millions or our own private webservers. So we have to rely on free services, such as those spammy ones.
If you're offering your own hosting services instead of theirs, then by all means, I know a lotta people who'll use them. But that's why.
Sorry, I'm not a native English speaker so I might have mixed up some words.
What I meant is, services like Mediafire don't spam users. There's a link, you click it and you get your file.
I love this site and whenever I want to share something, that's the free hosting service I use.
Other similar services, such as Hotfile, fileserver, and megaupload do the same thing; free hosting for files of (almost) any size.
What I dislike about these last sites is how how they "strongly encourage you" to upgrade to the premium service when you try to download a file (examples in the OP).
My question is, why don't people prefer the spam-free sites like mediafire?
And no, I don't work for them I just find terribly annoying the examples I mentioned before. I'm still trying to download baseband .52 for my x10i and I can't because fileserve insists I need to wait 900 seconds, no explanation given.
I dont know about you guys, but seriously.. all the ad crap associated with the normal download sites is getting ridiculous. Its as easy as a few clicks to make a torrent and we could seed these things at ridiculous speeds.
If there is a reason we are using these other BS sites, that's fine.. I guess I just don't know what that reason might be
Money I would say.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
Yeah tiredness would be a awesome way to distro but yep I think its the advertising money
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Problem with torrents is versions... everyone would be sharing old versions... Simpler fix would be getting devs sponserships.... A dev could get sponsered by a site like engadget and have a article-like post to display links to the file on engadget. An xda thread would then follow it with links but it would have to link to the article not the file, which could be sketchy with xda rules... Which means beginner devs would be left out unfortunately. But places like file uploading sites cannot watch every upload, so they cannot police the uploads themselves. So little guys will have to pay for server space until recognized, and they get picked up by a sponsor...
Etrick said:
Problem with torrents is versions... everyone would be sharing old versions... Simpler fix would be getting devs sponserships.... A dev could get sponsered by a site like engadget and have a article-like post to display links to the file on engadget. An xda thread would then follow it with links but it would have to link to the article not the file, which could be sketchy with xda rules... Which means beginner devs would be left out unfortunately. But places like file uploading sites cannot watch every upload, so they cannot police the uploads themselves. So little guys will have to pay for server space until recognized, and they get picked up by a sponsor...
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I don't know if different versions would be that problematic. Sure, older versions would still be out there, but if a post was created that always contained the latest torrents for the latest roms, then the only people who would be getting old versions would be people leeching from outside of XDA.
I was thinking about keeping an updated copy of all roms, and then creating torrent links, seeded by me for others to DL and share. Of course I will check with the Devs first.
However, the problem with the system now, is even I, an accomplished programmer and highly skilled on the internet, am having problems figuring out at times which link is the correct and real download link. These free share sites are so full of garbage ads and trick links to get you click on everything BUT the actual DL link. Once you have successfully navigated the shark filled waters and obtained your file, it downloads at a snails pace.
It's just an idea, and obviously would need some collaboration and planning to work well for all involved
Would this be on a private tracker? Seems that would be easy for people to add malicious content and upload it then have it spread all over the place if it's not on a private and secure tracker.
I guess the .torrent files could just be posted in the threads as the download links are now to keep people who aren't actively seeking something like this away. I'm just picturing all of this going out on tpb or something and people not having a clue ruining their phones and spreading malicious content. But I guess there's no reason that couldn't be happening already.
feralicious said:
Would this be on a private tracker? Seems that would be easy for people to add malicious content and upload it then have it spread all over the place if it's not on a private and secure tracker.
I guess the .torrent files could just be posted in the threads as the download links are now to keep people who aren't actively seeking something like this away. I'm just picturing all of this going out on tpb or something and people not having a clue ruining their phones and spreading malicious content. But I guess there's no reason that couldn't be happening already.
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there is nothing that prevents some yahoo from coming onto xda, grabbing a file without reading anything, and then bricking his device. the "tracker" would simply be whatever stickied post we have that has the links to the torrents. If I were hosting the torrents links, I would just provide them (the torrent files) via my dropbox. the only people who would even be leeching and seeding would be those people who got the link from that post, which would also link to the roms OP that contains the instructions, should people want/need them.
The only issue with this method is the slow start. I have 5MB up stream, but if 100 people hit that all at the same time, it would slow to a crawl, I would have to limit my seeds to 2 or 3, and speeds would suffer until we had a good base (would only take a few hours). But after that, speeds on the torrent would be plenty fast to support <5 min DL times
Serinety said:
there is nothing that prevents some yahoo from coming onto xda, grabbing a file without reading anything, and then bricking his device.
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True. And there's nothing stopping someone grabbing the file, modifying it with malicious content and uploading it to a public torrent site either. That's why I said it could be already happening.
Serinety said:
the "tracker" would simply be whatever stickied post we have that has the links to the torrents. If I were hosting the torrents links, I would just provide them (the torrent files) via my dropbox. the only people who would even be leeching and seeding would be those people who got the link from that post, which would also link to the roms OP that contains the instructions, should people want/need them.
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For torrents to work there has to be a hosting tracker. That's how everyone gets connected, via the tracker that facilitates it all and hosts the original .torrent file. It's not just simply where the .torrent file lives to be downloaded from, it is software that tracks who is trying to connect, who has what pieces of the file, who is requesting them, etc... it's what makes Bitorrent work. Without it no one can connect to each other. So if you simply make a .torrent file and give it to people via dropbox nothing will happen since it's not being hosted on a tracker. If you look at your torrent client when you've got something loaded you'll see there's a column for what tracker it's on. If you try to open a .torrent file that is no longer being hosted on a tracker you will get an error.
There's many sites that have trackers, some public where anyone can download the torrent and some private where you have to be member to download and some even more private where whenever you download the torrent your personal passkey is embedded/added to it so that it is affiliated with your account. Sites that track user's share ratio do that.
So there is the issue of what tracker is to be used on what site? If it's on a public site then that torrent is out there for the whole world with no documentation which is probably not that good of an idea. If it's on a private site then people have to register, in which case perhaps xda or an xda member might want to set up a tracker site just for Android ROMs and such.
There is a way to set up your own tracker but I've never looked into it much so I don't know if the only access is to those who actually have the torrent file or if the file is listed somewhere and available publicly.
Serinety said:
The only issue with this method is the slow start. I have 5MB up stream, but if 100 people hit that all at the same time, it would slow to a crawl, I would have to limit my seeds to 2 or 3, and speeds would suffer until we had a good base (would only take a few hours). But after that, speeds on the torrent would be plenty fast to support <5 min DL times
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The reason torrents are slow when they start is because there is only one person with the entire file. As the pieces flow out to the "100" leechers they will begin sharing with each other. Bitorrent is written so that the original seeder gives out different pieces to different people so that then they can continue sharing amongst each other. So in theory, the original seeder should only have to give out exactly one full copy of the file and the rest of the work is done by the swarm.
As I understand it you shouldn't have to limit your seeds that much, clients are written to know how to handle it, and the more people you give different pieces to the more they can share with each other which is what really gets the speeds going. There's also superseed mode if you are the original seeder, which at this time I can't remember how that makes a difference since it's been a long time since I've used it.
You should, however, cap your upload speed to a little below capacity, although this is usually done to help get better download speeds. Can't explain why off the top of my head but it has to do with keeping the pipeline open for the two way traffic.
This just popped in my head today trying to download some ROMs and things with slow server connections.
I see torrents as only being a good thing assuming enough people are actually seeding the file. Hell, torrent it as a directory with a zip and the instructions in a text file. Also posting it with a version/date would be a good idea too.
Why is this a good thing? Well there is so much illegal content on torrent sites that it would be nice to see it used for other legitimate purposes besides indie albums and Linux ISO files. It's OUR job to try to keep it legitimate.
feralicious said:
You should, however, cap your upload speed to a little below capacity, although this is usually done to help get better download speeds. Can't explain why off the top of my head but it has to do with keeping the pipeline open for the two way traffic.
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When you download a file it sends packets, and before it can transmit the next one it has to verify that you actually received the previous one. If the upload is maxed out it can't do that as fast as normal so it retards your download speed.
My advice to everyone is to look at your network traffic upload when downloading a large file, then cap it to just below whatever it's peaking at.
I'm all for the idea of using torrents for ROM downloads. I personally have a NAS holding my downloads, so once seeding I'd have the ROM up 24/7.
I don't like public sites but I'm sure no one in here has an issue with signing up for a free private one. Best solution would be XDA as the tracker so that its all internal, but not sure they'd go for that.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
and how exactly would the devs track their downloads? Most devs only continue to release ROMs if there is interest.
This has been talked about before, and the devs are against it. I think less people use torrents than you think.
XDA could use magnet links as the tracker (much as TPB is doing now.)
As far as interest, you can see it in the ROM threads when there are 50 someodd pages for one ROM, and three for another. You could even put in an (opt in) anonymous tracker app that reports usage statistics and/or thank them for the ROM on the original post.
I've always had this idea also and Magnet links would be great. This idea once again popped into my head when I was downloading Newts Senseless ICS that the other guy (forget his name) has been updating. I downloaded it on my phone over wifi and it literallly took about 45 minutes to download because it was capped since I had a free account on the hosting site.
Another great perk of using torrents would be you wouldn't have to wait for the uploader to finish uploading to the site so people can start downloading, and in the rare case the upload screws up everyone doesn't have to wait hours once again for the file to be re-uploaded. Also it's less bandwidth used since there isn't a central server.
So if some users wanted to start this but the devs wanted their own hosting, would the devs get angry at others hosting their ROMs in torrents? I think if we want to test this out it'd be worthwhile. Then if it works well, devs can start if they wish. Worst case scenario we have multiple download sources.
Count me in for trials if someone picks a tracker.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
spitzaf said:
So if some users wanted to start this but the devs wanted their own hosting, would the devs get angry at others hosting their ROMs in torrents? I think if we want to test this out it'd be worthwhile. Then if it works well, devs can start if they wish. Worst case scenario we have multiple download sources.
Count me in for trials if someone picks a tracker.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
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of course the devs would get pissed if you started torrenting their ROMs. Its their intellectual property.
nrfitchett4 said:
of course the devs would get pissed if you started torrenting their ROMs. Its their intellectual property.
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Torrenting != pirating. It's just a file sharing protocol.
spitzaf said:
So if some users wanted to start this but the devs wanted their own hosting, would the devs get angry at others hosting their ROMs in torrents? I think if we want to test this out it'd be worthwhile. Then if it works well, devs can start if they wish. Worst case scenario we have multiple download sources.
Count me in for trials if someone picks a tracker.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
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jrsmith said:
Torrenting != pirating. It's just a file sharing protocol.
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nrfitchett (which gets autocorrected to bewitched ) was replying specifically to the post quoted above which suggests doing it against dev's wishes.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
Not against, in addition to. If they said "no you can't" then we shouldn't. However if they just didn't want to do it themselves but don't care if we do, then its fine.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using XDA App
feralicious said:
nrfitchett (which gets autocorrected to bewitched ) was replying specifically to the post quoted above which suggests doing it against dev's wishes.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk
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I didn't read it that way, especially considering the "intellectual property" bit. Regardless, this sort of setup would work best if the devs were seeding their releases themselves, so there would be no permission issues. The file obviously has to come from them initially, and they'd control what they put out there.
A private tracker would solve 99% of the concerns here, and is a common use case for trackers already. A limited number of users are allowed to post the torrents to the tracker, while all users are allowed to download.
Every time I'm dealing with broken links to megaupload or listening to people complain that uploads to the myriad file hosting services are slow or crapping out in the middle, I wonder yet again why someone hasn't set up a private tracker for rom distribution.
Exactly, and it would also prevent things like this from happening.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1163009
Specifically see the post at:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=22626534&postcount=566
This is a perfect example of why these things should have torrents. I had 2.3.5 WebTop on my system but deleted it because it was outdated. I didn't think every other copy on the internet would disappear as well
Oh well, hopefully he learns to keep backups now