Being a command line junkie, I prefer using the terminal for my downloading needs. Let me introduce you to Aria2. As from the website.

aria2 is a multi-protocol & multi-source, cross platform download utility. The supported protocols are HTTP(S), FTP, BitTorrent (DHT, PEX, MSE/PE), and Metalink.

Using Fedora, my favourite distro of choice, you first have to install it via yum.

yum install aria2

Next, you’ll need to have your cookies saved. Refer to the previous post for more details.

Now comes the fun part, actually downloading the files.

Here’s a file which I uploaded, a movie trailer for a recent movie:-

http://rapidshare.com/files/207110649/terminatorsalvation-tlr1_h1080p.mov

To download with aria2, type in the following command:-

aria2c -s 5 -j 1 -c --load-cookies=/home/raja/cookies.txt http://rapidshare.com/files/207110649/terminatorsalvation-tlr1_h1080p.mov

The switches for this explained:-

• -s 5 Split the download into 5 connections
• -j 1 How many files to download at once.
• -c Continue any paused / cancelled downloads
• –load-cookies /path/to/cookie The rapidshare cookie file that was created earlier. This has to be an absolute path
• And finally the actual URL of the file

If you have a list of files to download, you can enter them in to a text file, and pass them to aria2 for batch downloading via the -i list_file_name option. e.g.

aria2c -s 5 -j 1 -c --load-cookies=/home/raja/cookies.txt -i lists.txt

Happy batch downloading!!!

Its basically a two step process being:

1. Saving a cookie with your Rapidshare login details in it. To do that, just enter the following command:

   $ wget --save-cookies ~/cookies.txt --post-data "login=USERNAME&password=PASSWORD" -O - https://ssl.rapidshare.com/cgi-bin/premiumzone.cgi > /dev/null

   Replace USERNAME & PASSWORD with your own Rapidshare details.
   What this script does is login to Rapidshare and saves the cookie to a file named cookies.txt in your home directory. Any normal HTML output is piped to the resident unix blackhole, /dev/null.

2. Downloading your file using the cookie to supply your Rapidshare credentials. Now that we’ve saved your cookie information, you can go ahead and download to your heart’s content (or maybe daily limit). Here’s an example of how you’d do that. Remember that the cookie you created previously was stored in your home directory. For most linux shells, you can refer to it like this:- ~/cookies.txt

   To actually download, use the following command:-

   wget --load-cookies ~/cookies.txt your-rapidshare-url.com/file-link.html

Happy downloading.

My friend Danny wrote about this new torrent search engine, YouTorrent. With Malaysia’s frustratingly slow internet connections, with the many accusations of throttling or traffic shaping when it comes to torrents, direct downloads maybe be an alternative option.

This is where one-click-hosting sites comes into play. These sites allow you to upload files to their servers, which they then ‘host’. You’ll be given a link to download them, which can then be passed on to all your contacts, making your media accessible all over the world.  Rapidshare.com is one the the early pioneers and more popular of the lot. Their multiple mirrors and reliability seem pretty good to me, making it one of my preferred file sharing hosts.

There are quite a number of sites that post ‘files’ on rapidshare.com. The 2 which I frequent the most are:

• Rapidshare King
• Leecher’s Lair

Rapidshare King primaryly uploads movies, while Leecher’s Lair provides everything else under the sun. I personally know a few users with paid RapidShare accounts, because of how easy it is to download things.

Hope this posts helps you guys in getting another alternative to torrenting.