Filerush.com shutdown. :(

[Cheetah8799]

It's a sad day for bittorrent users who use the tool for legitimate downloads. Filerush.com used to provide a vast array of game demos and other files which were 100% legitimate and legal to download via bittorrent. They have shut down as of a couple days ago because many ISPs have blocked bittorrent and many users were complaining about it. I personally am very sad to see it go, since I really liked their service.

Read here for more info:
http://www.filerush.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4831


Thankfully, 3dgamers.com has a bittorrent download option for most downloads I've tried lately. It's not as fast as filerush, but it's better than waiting for direct download from most of the file providers.

Anyway, thought I'd share this info with the rest of the community here.


edit: I just finished downloading the WoW 1.9 patch via 3dgamers torrent last night, it really was nowhere near as fast as through Filerush. I was getting maybe 60kbps via 3dgamers. They just don't put up enough bandwidth for it, they rely on the world users to keep seeding. Filerush always had their own seed servers which pumped out the data at extremely fast rates. I could often max out my Comcast download bandwidth, somewhere over 300kbps.


edit again: I'll quote the long version here for folks at work.

The long version: About 2.5 years ago when we were still AIX Gaming, we hosted a few videos from E3 2003 with the brand new Bittorrent technology. These ended up being extremely popular and coupled with the launch of Google Ads around the same time, I launched Filerush.com. The focus was always on Bittorrent instead of direct HTTP downloads, although I was approached by Linkmania.ro who generously offered itself as a mirror for the files we hosted. Over the next 2 and a half years, we massively expanded our servers and the number of torrents we offered to more than 15 times the bandwidth usage of our original bittorrent seed server. Unfortunately for the project, the peer to peer world didn't sit still.

Due to the efforts of the RIAA and MPAA, the constant threat of legal action against users and internet providers has lead many ISPs to block or severely throttle the speeds available to Bittorrent and other P2P applications. No matter how much bandwidth across multiple servers and tcp ports we pumped into the files, we would constantly receive feedback from users who complained of extremely slow speeds or not being able to download at all. This rang true on a personal level when the cable company I use at home for my Internet service started blocking all seeding of Bittorrent files.

Due to the above stigma and various other technical factors that go into making Bittorrent use more difficult than standard HTTP downloads such a firewalls/NAT and requiring a special client, Bittorrent download numbers were always particularly low. Even with files hosted on File Rush that reached as high as 40,000 downloads, the number of people choosing the flooded 3k/sec direct download link over the very fast Bittorrent option was 15 to 1. One thing that I realized very early on, is that I can't compete against the massive number of free and pay direct download sites that have flooded the net since bandwidth became cheap a year or so ago. My only chance was with Bittorrent which most stayed away from.

My hope was that I would be able to put up a site with very few ads and minimal user navigation to actually reach the download, while offering the option where the user would never have to wait in line by way of Bittorrent. Sadly, even with large sites like Blues News, ve3d.com, and ggmania graciously linking to our downloads, the numbers just aren't there. The supply of money to fund the site was never a problem, it's just that after 2 years of user counts that had ceased to show any additional growth, I didn't see the point of continuing to throw more capital at it.

 

[duragezic]

Damn. He says he discontinued because no one used the BT links. I ALWAYS chose BT link over direct download if it was anything 50mb or greater. And I never knew ISPs were now blocking BT. Hmph.

 

[xtknight]

ISPs block BitTorrent? wtf? Excuse my French, but that's stupid. They should block NNTP Usenet and FTP too. BitTorrent is a great way to alleviate bandwidth on servers.

 

[n7]

That's ridiculous.

That site was great for grabbing game demos.

 

[Super56K]

I loved that site. It was the best place for me to get demos, patches, and mods. The bit torrent downloads were always able to max out my connection within seconds, and stay there throughout the download. Thanks for the 3dGamers suggestion, OP. I'll have to give the site a try.

 

[ZoomStop]

wish I could get in to read TFA (blocked here at work since it is BitTorrent related).
But why the hell take down a site because everyone is doing the direct download? Why not serve only torrents?
Just makes no sense. With the traffic that site gets he should have been pulling in enough money from Google ad's to keep the lights on...

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: AcidBath
wish I could get in to read TFA (blocked here at work since it is BitTorrent related).
But why the hell take down a site because everyone is doing the direct download? Why not serve only torrents?
Just makes no sense. With the traffic that site gets he should have been pulling in enough money from Google ad's to keep the lights on...

The point was that there weren't many users, ie: not much traffic, so it wasn't worth it.

 

[Modeps]

I heard about this yesterday, totally sucks I loved that site.

 

[Cheetah8799]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: AcidBath
wish I could get in to read TFA (blocked here at work since it is BitTorrent related).
But why the hell take down a site because everyone is doing the direct download? Why not serve only torrents?
Just makes no sense. With the traffic that site gets he should have been pulling in enough money from Google ad's to keep the lights on...

The point was that there weren't many users, ie: not much traffic, so it wasn't worth it.

I think there were plenty of users, as is apparent by how many people have spoken out about how dissapointed they are. The problem is that a large percentage have been blocked from using the bittorrent links because of their ISP. The site owner decided that if the ISP industry is going to start blocking the service, then there is no sense in trying to use it anymore.

Hopefully he will come up with a new way to offer downloads, or maybe someone else will take up the challenge and provide a similar site.

 

[Sureshot324]

I have a related question. If you don't use the default port for bittorrent, can ISPs still block you?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: xtknight
ISPs block BitTorrent? wtf? Excuse my French, but that's stupid. They should block NNTP Usenet and FTP too. BitTorrent is a great way to alleviate bandwidth on servers.

Many (most?) ISPs outsource usenet, and FTP isn't as horrible on the infrastructure as bittorrent.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324
I have a related question. If you don't use the default port for bittorrent, can ISPs still block you?

It's possible. It depends on the technologies they're using.