I am now personally hosting the site but may have lost the original domain name. All Imperium services and ROMUpdater servers are now gone and the new site is very limited. I now no longer personally host any files and have found a third party service that pays me per download. The following projects are now dead:
WebTop enable devices TabletDock
WebTop enable devices CarPC
Remote Access ROM Development Service
Anything Galaxy Tab
Anything GS2
Anything G2X
Anything not Photon related
The Martian Imperium site is now closed and in the process of being purged. In all likelihood there will be no new website and unless somebody here has a copy, all the files will disappear as well. iPage was the cheapest host I could find for the bandwidth users were pulling (500GB-1TB a month and over 1000 DL's a day). In addition to my own work, I was hosting all the SBF's, some high demand older ROMs and kernels, root-unlock-relock and other Photon related files.
I looked at alternate places to host but Mediafire would cost almost ten times as much and dropbox almost three times as much just to host files. I even covered the site in ads to help cover expenses with no real success. The core factor was that my wife and I went over the receipts yesterday and I have spent something like $1000USD this year in equipment and hosting. If I had received a $0.01 donation (after paypal takes it's cut) for every unique download I actually would have made money and been able to continue development. There were many things I had planned to release this year but as it stands I am leaving development and guide writing.
To those that have donated to me in the past I'm very sorry about this and will return your donations if you would like.
Thank you for the explanation, and all you've done. The sad fact is most don't send donations. Over the years that I've been on xda, I've only done it a half dozen times. I'm sure I should have done it more. I know development won't get you rich, but it shouldn't cost you. Thanks again for all you've done. Webtop and imperium are the ****!
Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2
What started all this was a "We need to have a talk" email from my host. They had been very forgiving about the bandwidth usage but had enough and it was upgrade to business class service or leave. Meanwhile this is what I was working....
Remote Access Development Services. It's only a proof of concept at this stage but it's free to any dev that wants it.
I actually might be able to help you out if you think you can keep it below a TB a month.
Let me know and Ill go back and check my usage to see how much bandwidth I have left over. I think I get 2 TB a month and I dont believe Im quite using one.
I can help you out in the hosting department. My hosting is unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth per month. I use IX web hosting. If you would like, I'll throw your files up on my site so that anyone that needs them and get them... I can upload them and you can hotlink to them...
Let me know... I'm not able to donate $$$ (due to the fact that i don't have much myself) but I can donate space and bandwidth. The Photon 4G needs good developers, and I'd hate to see you go...
phqchevys said:
I can help you out in the hosting department. My hosting is unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth per month. I use IX web hosting. If you would like, I'll throw your files up on my site so that anyone that needs them and get them... I can upload them and you can hotlink to them...
Let me know... I'm not able to donate $$$ (due to the fact that i don't have much myself) but I can donate space and bandwidth. The Photon 4G needs good developers, and I'd hate to see you go...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most unlimited hosting plans. Will freak out after a tb a month.
Sent from my mopho
Just trying to help out...
But, you might want to check out there policies. There unlimited is truly unlimited... according to their TOS. That's why I went with them. Currently I have 5.91GB of used space and 518GB of bandwidth used this month... about average for me...
That's some BS right there. I've never used any of your work, but I've seen you around. (I have an Electrify, I can't use a lot of Photon stuff. Plus it's locked... 2.3.5.)
Seems like there should be a way, in this day and age, to croudsource the files somehow. Multiple dropboxes/sugar syncs/box.nets, or a torrent with a bunch of us hosting all the files. In fact if you can get just a few people with fast Internet at home to leave their BitTorrent client running, seeding your torrent, people could get that just as fast as they could from direct download. Linux uses BitTorrent, couldn't you do something like that? Hell, I only have 1.5MBit DSL, which lets me upload about 30kB/s before web browsing starts to lag, but I'd help seed. I don't have a Photon, but Electrify development kind of depends on Photon development.
Best of luck to you.
To All,
I appreciate the offers for file hosting but as the number of projects increase so would the bandwidth. The main source for the, to be honest, leeching is from locations outside xda. For example, China is responsible for a very large portion of it and have found hotlinking of my files in a couple of sites.
I was able to sell of some things today and have buyers lined up for others. I may be able to continue but at a much slower rate and will have to kill a number of pending projects.
I have found a possible solution but have had to kill a number of services. It also involves a very limited access website and file hosting has been moved to a service suggest to me by one of my users in Russia. I don't know how well this will work out as I will have to remove the update service from all future releases.
Please try the new site and let me know if it works. For now it's just a copy of the old site with a bunch of broken stuff. Unlike the old site, live site updates are now impossible and can only handle a limited number of connections.
Dark Reality said:
That's some BS right there. I've never used any of your work, but I've seen you around. (I have an Electrify, I can't use a lot of Photon stuff. Plus it's locked... 2.3.5.)
Seems like there should be a way, in this day and age, to croudsource the files somehow. Multiple dropboxes/sugar syncs/box.nets, or a torrent with a bunch of us hosting all the files. In fact if you can get just a few people with fast Internet at home to leave their BitTorrent client running, seeding your torrent, people could get that just as fast as they could from direct download. Linux uses BitTorrent, couldn't you do something like that? Hell, I only have 1.5MBit DSL, which lets me upload about 30kB/s before web browsing starts to lag, but I'd help seed. I don't have a Photon, but Electrify development kind of depends on Photon development.
Best of luck to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can say it's BS but there were a lot of things on the site the most free services do not allow. In addition to the site itself it had live support chat, a forum, an update server (think ROM Manager) as well as the entire Photon file archive and my own projects.
Multiple file hosting accounts makes file management a job unto itself. Torrents have been tried before with very little success.
Like I mentioned above, I have found a possible solution that may or may not work out but have had to kill a number of services.
I will be more than happy to do something as simple as setting you up a ftp server. You would have full access to your personal "ftp folder" on my hosting server... If interested, PM me and ill set it up...
Sent from my MoPho using the Official XDA Android App
Lokifish Marz said:
To those that have donated to me in the past I'm very sorry about this and will return your donations if you would like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I appreciate the offer but would consider it boorish to take you up on it.
Frankly, I think it's unnecessary for you to even consider making the offer, but not surprising given the nature of your efforts to help and support this community.
Let's just say that this is taking the concept of giving back to others a little too far.
I start my new job this Monday and once my money flows, I'll start donating to those who deserve it, i feel bad but yea glad to see your still around.
i have most of the same files (old ones at least) hosted on holylivingfuck.com in my sig, i do however have a new host (seperate from hlf) which ill be uploaidng all my copies onto as well. if you could be so kind as to update the guide with the links ill be sending you that would be awesome
trying to make sure that we dont have any lost files due to domains etc
Lokifish Marz said:
I am now personally hosting the site but may have lost the original domain name. All Imperium services and ROMUpdater servers are now gone and the new site is very limited. I now no longer personally host any files and have found a third party service that pays me per download. The following projects are now dead:
WebTop enable devices TabletDock
WebTop enable devices CarPC
Remote Access ROM Development Service
Anything Galaxy Tab
Anything GS2
Anything G2X
Anything not Photon related
The Martian Imperium site is now closed and in the process of being purged. In all likelihood there will be no new website and unless somebody here has a copy, all the files will disappear as well. iPage was the cheapest host I could find for the bandwidth users were pulling (500GB-1TB a month and over 1000 DL's a day). In addition to my own work, I was hosting all the SBF's, some high demand older ROMs and kernels, root-unlock-relock and other Photon related files.
I looked at alternate places to host but Mediafire would cost almost ten times as much and dropbox almost three times as much just to host files. I even covered the site in ads to help cover expenses with no real success. The core factor was that my wife and I went over the receipts yesterday and I have spent something like $1000USD this year in equipment and hosting. If I had received a $0.01 donation (after paypal takes it's cut) for every unique download I actually would have made money and been able to continue development. There were many things I had planned to release this year but as it stands I am leaving development and guide writing.
To those that have donated to me in the past I'm very sorry about this and will return your donations if you would like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damn unfortunate for the Photon community if we lose you. Definitely one of the very helpful devs out there. I do understand what you mean...lots of people like to use the work...not many understand what it costs you in time and energy, not to mention cash money. Best of luck to ya!
Related
It makes me so very sad to see such fantastic projects that people put countless hours into get dumped onto sites like Rapidshare not just because they suck, are often temporary links that disappear, your customers have to go through ridiculous captchas and waits and download and speed limits, but also largely because these companies benefit commercially (ads and selling premium accounts) from your work probably more, I'd wager, than you benefit from donations from people who use your work and manage to give you a few bucks (wild guess).
I don't want to be sad anymore. Just so happens I've got space and bandwidth to spare. If you want me to mirror your Raphael rom, just ask (though I may ask you first) and I'll give you a deep link to post which will look like this -- http://mirror.blownfuze.org/[the rom's filename]
People click it, up pops the download dialog, Save, bam the thing downloads fast with no ads, no donation requests, no nothing. And if you get curious I can let you see how many people download your rom relative to the other roms I'm hosting and where these people are coming from geographically. That's icing on the cake; my primary purpose is to give back to the community without using paypal.
Three prerequisites -- it's gotta be intended for the Raphael, in English and you're a senior member.
Shoot me a message.
I second this motion!!
d0ugie gets it!
Rapidshare drives me nutz...
PS. Thanks Doug.
No offense meant but the problem with mirrors is that they don't last long. At least rapidshare is always there. Its a major PITA when a mirror site goes unavailable.
A BitTorrent pool might be a better option. But that would be dependent on people staying active as well.
i agree...rapidshare is bull$hit!!! and PayPal is a joke as well...help a brother out...
Paypal? Where did that come from?
I forgot to mention that I thought the thread title was a threat when I first read it...I read:
"Stop using rapidshare!! I'll mirror your MOM."
@d0ugie
Great idea though it ONLY makes sense if your mirror is stable.
Hope you know what you are buying into it?!
I have no bandwidth problem either and mirrored 2 Tilt and 2 Raph ROMeOS's... counts go up easy in the 100s of Gigabit/month (almost like on a xxx-site).
Just wanted to make you aware.
Sleuth255 said:
No offense meant but the problem with mirrors is that they don't last long. At least rapidshare is always there. Its a major PITA when a mirror site goes unavailable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, a bit of topic but is there any chance there will be any public roms from you sleuth? i id love to see what you've been up to since the kaiser roms =)
+1, Informative
tyguy said:
@d0ugie
Great idea though it ONLY makes sense if your mirror is stable.
Hope you know what you are buying into it?!
I have no bandwidth problem either and mirrored 2 Tilt and 2 Raph ROMeOS's... counts go up easy in the 100s of Gigabit/month (almost like on a xxx-site).
Just wanted to make you aware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm. 100Gb/month for romeos links, huh.
Well here's the setup: My own server (blownfuze.org) has a modest link to my ISP. The server and its connection are very stable and sturdy; I know what I'm doing with Linux machines and I've had the link for years without any interruption that I was aware of. On one of the ISP's servers I have a shell account with a 2GB quota and no explicit bandwidth quota, speed or cumulative. The cabs I host on my server and even in peak hours it has not been out of control, not enough that the people I serve websites for with the same machine have said anything regarding latency -- even with HostnameLookups turned on. The radios and roms however I put on my shell and when someone downloads a rom or radio from my server my server redirects them with a meta refresh file to the file on the ISP's server. Based on my trial run over the past month or whatever with my site, guaging how much traffic I'd sting the ISP with on their server with these rom mirrors, I think it's a safe bet my ISP won't object. I'm a good customer, we have a good relationship and they're a strong enough outfit to handle a customer giving out files for people to mess with their phones.
So yes there are now two points of failure, my server and the ISP cutting me off, but I can dodge both problems by, if my server fails, changing the A record on my mirror host on my domain to my office server (we have a ton of bandwidth we don't need) or if the shell thing becomes a dealbreaking issue I can just change the refresh tags on my server to point at my office.
I believe there is a "within reason" understanding in terms of the shell bandwidth usage as this ISP is connected to multiple bluechip telcos and even pumping out dozens of gigabytes a month wouldn't piss them off -- in my estimation. Again I've been a good and profitable customer of theirs for a long time (several years?) and doubt they'd just pull the plug on me but if they did I'd simply redirect those meta refreshes to the server in my office until I negotiated something either with my ISP or another company and would not leave rom authors just hanging. So by having the links go to my server I have control over where they are directed and I also enjoy the bliss of datamining my Apache logs to see whose rom is getting downloaded by how many people and from where those people are located. That's fun to me.
In light of your own experience however it would be prudent of me to have a chat with my ISP to make sure they're cool with this so that I don't make major commitments to XDA folk and then fail them suddenly -- even though I take the basic measures to keep my pages from being googled and botted and can get aggressive with mod rewrites and other Apache tricks to enforce only letting XDA people (not ppcgeeks and strangers from search engines and such), hits with xda in the initial referrer entry, download anything from my server (which triggers the fast shell download).
Nevertheless, for now, I am going to continue to proceed with caution, contact the ISP soon, and take it from there.
Thanks tyguy.
As long as no one uploads on rapidshare, then i'm good. 15 minutes between downloads is KILLER =(
Just wanted to make you aware of the issue d0ugie.
I too have no problems with my host and bandwidth and you seem to have some internet / web hosting experience but as example when i hosted ROMeOS2_150_5_ENG_20759_041208_conFUZEd.zip which was a pre-final it was downloaded 190 times during one day with a file size of 78.78 MB on the server, looking at the start and exit counts assumes some used download managers. Just be careful and get the ducks in line up front.
Let me give you some help to calculate:
Just use Windows "Start" - "Run" - "Calc", take the thumb of your left hand and pick your nose with the index finger of the right hand and make a good gestimate of popular ROM and theme demands and go from there.
Some help, that chickensh*t <essentials> packed behind my "ATT Fuze NOOBs only - Little setup guide. " started 14-12-2008, 05:02 PM is 20.20 MB was downloaded 276 times while the thread was viewed 2,179 times. Not sure if you always can gestimate 10% download ratio over views but ...
Don't wanna be a nerd but don't like get others burned as well.
How about a Bittorrent pool like someone suggested? That is the best idea IMHO. Torrents are always fast and worth it.
That was my first thought but P1Tator didn't take kindly to my post on the subject. Though when a major release gets going there could be added layers of redundancies with multiple trackers, you gotta have someone who knows what they're doing to start this, you got to have people maintain this, you need trackers on a reliable server like xda's and when you do that there must be some careful monitoring over what torrents are hosted by XDA-connected (or even just loosely-afiliated) trackers, who has access to it, which authors are trusted not to include anything sketchy so that an old copy of WMWifirouter or a cracked version of BeeLineGPS doesn't slip its way through the cracks. Not easy to delete an in-the-wild bittorrent share as you can delete a thread.
The word bittorrent itself starts fires. XDA needs to keep a low profile when it comes to its members behaving themselves and when you've got people messing with Microsoft's software and rebranding it as their own and then distributing it over a notorious method it could get ugly.
From a practical standpoint, a bittorrent download takes a while to get warmed up; a direct link from a solid mirror does not. Users have to have an additional client installed. A lot of us do already and those who don't can figure it out but we'd need more how-tos. From the serving standpoint or an additional more complicated database thing you'd find on other bittorrenting sites it just doesn't sound feasible especially when you have some people out there like me who can donate bandwidth (I'm vetting myself to make sure I can do this reliably). We're talking what, 70-100MB files here that people put a ton of time into and people who use these files shell out several hundered bucks for their phone and another hundred a month for their bill. Bandwidth is cheap and if we get people fired up a bit we can figure out how to host our own files without Rapidshare and friends or bittorrent.
Though I still like the idea. Certainly more than rapidshare.
I wrote my ISP a thoughtful letter to see how much is too much in terms of giving out bandwidth for mirroring. When they get back to me I'll get back to you all. If they say yeah sure go ahead, at least for the Raphael forums, problem solved. Mostly.
Kraize said:
How about a Bittorrent pool like someone suggested? That is the best idea IMHO. Torrents are always fast and worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
d0ugie said:
That was my first thought but P1Tator didn't take kindly to my post on the subject.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
P1Tater not P1Tator.
All kidding aside. You have actually hit the nail on the head. Bit Torrents are frowned upon due to the large amount of publicity these create. Noone has ever said this but think about it. We strip shipped roms and tear them to shreds. We also take shipped apps not meant for "all" devices and port them to God knows what. We even have ported other OS to a WM device never meant for anything but WM. Plus, having a cooked rom come up in a torrent search/finder beside WAREZ and other files with virus' inside is not the publicity XDA is looking for. Not trying to come off all high and mighty, just want to keep XDA smooth and as trouble free as possible so we can continue to rip apps, port roms to other devices, and have our wonder developers continue to devlop apps for our devices without having to go to some sort of "store" (cough cough iStore) and buy every app that we want to install on our phones. Please understand, I just want to keep XDA as smooth and as trouble free as I possibly can without any "negative" publicity. That's all.
P1Tater said:
P1Tater not P1Tator.
All kidding aside. You have actually hit the nail on the head. Bit Torrents are frowned upon due to the large amount of publicity these create. Noone has ever said this but think about it. We strip shipped roms and tear them to shreds. We also take shipped apps not meant for "all" devices and port them to God knows what. We even have ported other OS to a WM device never meant for anything but WM. Plus, having a cooked rom come up in a torrent search/finder beside WAREZ and other files with virus' inside is not the publicity XDA is looking for. Not trying to come off all high and mighty, just want to keep XDA smooth and as trouble free as possible so we can continue to rip apps, port roms to other devices, and have our wonder developers continue to devlop apps for our devices without having to go to some sort of "store" (cough cough iStore) and buy every app that we want to install on our phones. Please understand, I just want to keep XDA as smooth and as trouble free as I possibly can without any "negative" publicity. That's all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sleuth255 said:
No offense meant but the problem with mirrors is that they don't last long. At least rapidshare is always there. Its a major PITA when a mirror site goes unavailable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said and I agree with both of you. Rapidshare may not be for everyone but it does trick for right now.
I understand the hesitation with torrents and not wanting too much attention, but let's face it...Microsoft knows about this site, HTC knows about this site. Torrents aren't going to be any more negative publicity than it's gotten in the past about the FTP, and that was mostly because the files were directly linked to the site.
Hey I hear you with the c'mon argument.
Yes Microsoft and HTC know about us. I've gotten hundreds of hits from proxy server hosts under .microsoft.com downloading everything on my site and HTC has gotten plenty of love letters from us as well as petition websites brewed by XDA people. We don't really pose a threat to Microsoft though one could argue we have a tepidly adversarial relationship with HTC for our criticism of them and our attempts to generate negative publicity against them as well as our attempts to pressure them to do business differently (like with the Kaiser video driver saga). Though XDA may be some server in the Netherlands, we comprise XDA as we are clumped together in the minds of The Man when we do something The Man doesn't like so we, thanks to the likes of P1Tater and other volunteers, have to spend an enormous amount of time cleaning up not just spam and dumb threads but making sure no one posted Skyfire when it was recently in private beta and so on. We're on self-warez-patrol, defcon 1.
You add extracted and redesigned software with different branding artwork, possibly copyrighted software, operating systems, leaked or hacked drivers etc on top of that and you have a large happy community such as ours that is operating in the gray area. We're more good to MS and HTC than we are bad but if they so choose to exercise it they have power over XDA, power to kill XDA, and we must act accordingly. People can post cabs and links but there is some vague protection for XDA, sort of like Slashdot but with attachments, as those are posted by individuals and are therefore sort of owned by the poster not XDA and XDA with their moderators tries to operate in a manner that projects an air of good faith /in addition to/ helping Microsoft and HTC as we are a resource for ways they can produce better products. We're pretty harlmess -- why would HTC care if someone else cleans up after them with GPS driver fixes? Cheapest thing for them to do is copy /our/ work.
In the event of Microsoft or HTC or Opera or whoever developing a major grievance with something that goes down here and sends XDA a cease and decist letter that XDA cannot afford to defend themselves against and must comply with, demanding XDA to take down threads containing *, when you've got bittorrent in the mix as you're suggesting XDA loses the ability to comply swiftly and effectively with such a demand to the satisfaction of these potentially litigous companies if satisfying them includes pulling the plug fully on a proliferation of a file that made its debut here if it's floating around in bittorrent and making its way to the high traficked torrent portals with traces back to XDA.
No one cares about FTP and for these purposes no one even knows what FTP is. Rapidshare (or good samaritan mirror operations like mine) is not on the MPAA's hitlist either. But the reputation of bittorrent, even though those who defend bittorrent adamantly cite that it's great for kosher stuff too like Linux (and us), makes it not an option for XDA as XDA does, again, to some extent operate in a gray area and does not have the resources to do so with the audacity of providing bittorrent solutions in the event it needs to pay legal bills. XDA may not even know how gray our gray area is, doubt we have a lawyer on retainer. I doubt most lawyers would know the answers anyway. Unchartered territory (but gray territory). So XDA has to assume an MO of paranoia. Blending in bittorrent to XDA either with an XDA-sanctioned and maintained portal/tracker or just encouraging users with wikis and such on how to set up their own tracker when they release their own rom, given that there are other options, is bad for business. Now me I am not even going to bother researching how legal these roms are; I am cool with my ISP and I'll assume the risk by putting them on hosts directly connected to me and my identity but you won't find these roms on XDA's ftp server probably not just because their more than 1MB but because they are sketchy in nature. XDA can barely pay for bandwidth with these banners ads that most of us don't see with adblock and the small stream of donations. Where's XDA going to get $20K one day if **** hits the fan? Nowhere. Just because we've got thousands of members here, often extremely talented and good-hearted people, does not make us immune from total destruction and bittorrent gives that doomsday scenerio an elevetated probability.
XDA's doomed at best to walk on eggshells. Bittorrent is a four letter word. XDA cannot, in my estimation, live with it; certainly not when XDA can live without it.
motionmind said:
I understand the hesitation with torrents and not wanting too much attention, but let's face it...Microsoft knows about this site, HTC knows about this site. Torrents aren't going to be any more negative publicity than it's gotten in the past about the FTP, and that was mostly because the files were directly linked to the site.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
d0ugie said:
No one cares about FTP and for these purposes no one even knows what FTP is
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All of the rom files used to be hosted on the FTP, that's all I mentioned that for...were you around for that? Just don't remember how long ago that debacle was.
Also, I know there are invite-only networks and we already have to be a member of xda-dev to download locally hosted files, so what about a private p2p setup?
jonteponte said:
Hey, a bit of topic but is there any chance there will be any public roms from you sleuth? i id love to see what you've been up to since the kaiser roms =)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah same here.
Is there like a record for the longest written post in a forum?
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!!!
------------------
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They don't allow file storage/sharing like this.
Ryjabo said:
They don't allow file storage/sharing like this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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!!!!
Guys, theres a movement in the community to get rid of this site which sells access to pirated paid apps. Now, this isnt to promote the site, this is to get rid of it. Please go here and sign the petition. All the information is there. Support app developers who work hard to make our phones better by helping to get rid of these pirates.
http://bit.ly/bkKwaZ
Support your community!
Also, if you follow this link: http://twitter.com/Mini_Lee/status/20682622042 it will take you to the tweet i put out with the petition link directly in it. So if you're one of those people with thousands of followers on twitter, send it out!
Done, and tweeting it.
Signed - thank you to whoever started this petition!
Been following this on Twitter today. Retweeted protests, and just signed this. I'll be honest, I pirate a lot of stuff, but I wouldn't pirate from a hard working Android dev. If pirating Android apps grew, devs might be less inclined to develop good apps for Android.
OP updated with link to RT'able tweet link.
Kusotare, what do you intend to do with the results of the petition?
I checked, their domain is registered through GoDaddy and hidden by DomainsByProxy. I sent an e-mail to DomainsByProxy to see whether they actually respond to information about illegal activity. It has been my experience that such complaints to GoDaddy will go unanswered but e-mail is cheap so I hit them up too.
But in all honesty, this will be a minor hiccup, if it gets them taken down at all. The overall IP block is owned by Worldstream out of the Netherlands (according to the RIPE branch of IANA), although some tools report the actual location as Portugal. If you run a reverse IP lookup (try a good one like YouGetSignal), the web server at the same IP is also host to a bunch of Iranian spam and piracy blogs under the vatanblog.com domain, so my guess is whomever owns the server (which isn't going to be the same as those running the network where the IP block is managed) isn't going to be too worried about the results of a petition.
But I suppose it can't hurt to hit up Worldstream, so I've e-mailed them as well.
P.S. Phromik, speaking as a software developer who has been victimized by piracy, you're a hypocritical tool.
^ really no need for that last part, though I understand why you would say it.
s15274n said:
^ really no need for that last part, though I understand why you would say it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really no need for him to roll in here and brag about his piracy, is there?
Fighting piracy is and will always be a losing battle, but when people are actually out there profiting from other people's hard work something needs to be done.
Signed and tweeted and facebooked. I will also follow suit and send emails to godaddy and Domainsbyproxy.
Except he's not bragging... he's being honest.
srqt said:
Fighting piracy is and will always be a losing battle, but when people are actually out there profiting from other people's hard work something needs to be done.
Signed and tweeted and facebooked. I will also follow suit and send emails to godaddy and Domainsbyproxy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GoDaddy are the domain registrant. The actual website is hosted on a dedicated server provided by worldstream.nl so you want to be contacting [email protected] as well as the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN at [email protected]
It's interesting to note that the same dedicated server is being used to host several other warez sites including some pornography forums. I'm pretty sure neither the server provider or BREIN would be happy about these.
It's interesting to note that within the last 12 hours androidplayground has been taken offline. However I suspect this was done by the owner rather than any takedown notice. He has already set his twitter account to private and one of the last tweets he sent was about having a new server ready.
To Bad google isn't jumping on this. I mean you see his lame comment on nearly every app that comes out in the market.
What confuses me is why would somebody send him money to become a member knowing he/she is a thief in the first place.
The results of the petition will be sent to the domain registrar, the host and paypal in a three way attack. If all goes well, they'll lose their domain, hosting and ability to charge people through paypal simultaneously. I have already emailed all three of the companies to let them know about the petition.
So yes, while it may be a losing battle in the long run to fight piracy, at least we can do what we can. Signing a petition or firing off an email takes the same amount of time it does to write a post here, so why not help out?
Response from Worldstream:
Hi,
The website has been taken down earlier today.
Met vriendelijke groet / Kind regards,
Dirk Vromans
Technical Engineer
Worldstream C.V.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Although from one of the earlier posts it sounds like the site owner was already planning to move it anyway -- which is what I was getting at earlier. The best you can hope for is to just go chasing him around endlessly.
I saw the same crap over and over in the Palm Treo software world...
The new licensing system might help. =]
Phromik said:
...If pirating Android apps grew, devs might be less inclined to develop good apps for Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whatever....
Without defending what I consider to be a low-life, who spams every review on the Market, most pirates wouldn't really buy most products they steal, just as most people don't normally pirate stuff they genuinely want and like.
There are a ton of pirate sources for the iPhone, yet good developers do pretty well in the App store.
The only developers whining are the ones who have a crappy product and blame the nebulous evil of "piracy" for their lack of success.
This is outrageous!! Piracy should be free.
I mean that completely tongue-in-cheek, as I spend a LOT of money on android software. I admit I don't hate piracy in general, as a sort of try-before-you-buy system, but charging money for stolen goods is evil. These people are scum.
Former AndroidPlayground.net user
I used to use this site because I just assumed that they had an agreement with the developers. I couldn't even imagine the audacity it would take to charge people for pirated software.
One thing I do wonder, why do Android apps cost more than iPhone apps? This might be part of the reason people feel like they are being ripped off by the android developers and say, "screw you then".
NOT trying to justify it, but it is something to consider.
jswanstr said:
One thing I do wonder, why do Android apps cost more than iPhone apps? This might be part of the reason people feel like they are being ripped off by the android developers and say, "screw you then".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just guessing, but so far all data indicates that iPhone users seem to be significantly more willing to pay for apps. I'm hoping this changes as the Android becomes more mainstream.
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
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...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jrsmith said:
Torrenting != pirating. It's just a file sharing protocol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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