Direct Linking or Hotlinking
Whenever you upload a file to a file hosting site, a download link is given to you to share the file with others. But there are mainly two ways in which the file can be downloaded.
Let’s say you uploaded a file “X” to example.com
And your blog/website is abc-xyz.com
Now if your readers can download that “X” file directly from a link present on your website (abc-xyz.com), then it is called hotlinking/direct linking. But if they have to visit example.com to download that particular “X” file (like in case of Rapidshare/MegaUpload etc.) then these download links are not considered as hotlinks/direct links.
Hotlink providers
These websites allow you to upload almost any file and get a direct link to that file. This post compares the following file hosts providing hotlinking facility:
1. OpenDrive
2. MyDataNest
3. Box.Net
4. FileDen.com (Kaspersky reported virus files on this site), and
5. HotLinkFiles (Site Offline Now - 25th October 2010)
This table will help you to select the best service out of the above listed free hosting providers.
Websites >>
|
OpenDrive
|
SigMirror
|
MyDataNest
|
FileDen
|
HotLinkFiles
|
Features
| |||||
Storage
|
5 GB
|
=>
|
2 GB
|
1 GB
|
0 GB
|
Bandwidth
|
1 GB / Day
|
=>
|
20 GB / Mon
|
5 GB / Mo
|
0 GB
|
HotLinking
|
Allowed
| => |
Allowed Without Restriction
for BloggerStop Visitors |
Not Allowed For .js Files
|
Allowed
|
Files Allowed
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All
|
=>
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All
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.js Files Not Allowed
|
Allowed
|
Uptime
|
99%
|
99%
|
99%
|
99%
|
Goes down frequently
|
Why you should NOT use HotLinkFiles.com & FileDen.com?
First of all, their servers go down frequently (so all the uploaded files go missing too). This is very annoying as your website/blog may stop loading due to these errors. So when selecting a file hosting server, make sure they guarantee 99.9% uptime.
Secondly there are several complaints against HotLinkFiles & FileDen, for containing harmful malware, Trojans and lots of spyware. You may read about this at AboutUs.org and at MyWot - HotLinkFiles and MyWOT - FileDen
Why NOT FileDen.com?
JavaScript files are used in most of the widgets and hacks. But at FileDen, no direct linking/hotlinking facility is provided for your JavaScript (.js) files. Moreover according to their TOU:
To maintain a stable system and provide the highest level of storage for all members, accounts that have been inactive for 30 days will have their files removed. As long as you keep an active account your files will never get deleted, regardless to size or usage.
Why NOT Google Pages/Google Sites?
Google has already decided to close their GooglePages service.
And in case of Google Sites, other than having a not-so user-friendly UI, they never disclose their allowed bandwidth. And when the (undisclosed) bandwidth is exceeded, of course the files become inaccessible.
BOX.net - something different...
Although Box.net allows its "free users" to place a widget on their blogs, through which their visitors can easily download all the files, but it is definitely not hotlinking as it requires a widget which is based on flash/javascript. BOX.net does allow hotlinking of files, but it is limited to premium customers only.
The Winner!
Therefore the selected file host service from the list above is OpenDrive.com
Although you may try and use their free service for as long as you want, but if you think you need more space and bandwidth then have a look on their premium plans too.
42 comments
Write commentsNice Reviews Divya....But there are many sites more like ripway and getdropbox just i keep on updaing list can check all here ..Free Javascript hosting sites And let me too know there if you found some more.
ReplyYou can update your list ....here
Reply@Anshul & Googy
ReplyThanks for suggesting these sites, although I heard of getdropbox but I never tried it. As mentioned by you Anshul, the bandwidth is not clearly mentioned and moreover in their service we need to download and install their application that's quite boring to explain in every tutorial, isn't it?
The site yourjavascripts.com sounds really great. But the site is quite new to mention and suggest it to others, and also without a proper account in the website, the file management may not be so easy. Moreover according to the who.is info the site has been registered only for a year (till Aug.2010) so I am not too confident in it.
Yes Divya I know that it (yourjavascript.com) is only registered for a year, but we should apply give and take policy there, which won't cost us anything, well we bloggers can just click on the ads there and support it to carry on and hope for its service for a long period.
ReplyHelping others is fine...
Replybut imagine a situation, where you recommended a website to 100s of readers and after an year that website closed down....now who is going to take the responsibility of those 1000s of missing files?
In reviews like these we suggest the readers to take proper back ups at other similar websites but no corporate website will ever suggest this to their members, they'll simply start a service and keep it running till they are making good profits...
@Googy
ReplyHere's an example, of what I was explaining:
A post at DigitalPoint, advertising their hosting site (on Sep26, 2008):
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1014380
On Dec5, 2008 he declared the SALE of his site:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=9988558#post9988558
[Do read the text under the subheading "Resources" in that post]
That site is no longer working...
Yeah! I got your point here...so I just tried another way & it worked. I just logged on to google sites and created a page using 'file cabinet' template and uploaded a javascript file and copied the download link, it was something like this- http://sites.google.com/site/asishnarayanproject/jsfiles/scrolltopcontrol.js?attredirects=0&d=1 and just deleted '?attredirects=0&d=1' part from the link and added to my blog as <script src='http://sites.google.com/site/asishnarayanproject/jsfiles/scrolltopcontrol.js' type='text/javascript'/> and it worked! You can check the scroll to top button in working in my site: http://blogzgallery[dot]blogspot[dot]com, you can also check the source part there.
ReplyYeah I know that method, but you can see that it is not so user friendly. Moreover as I have already explained in the post, Google has not disclosed the allowed bandwidth. Believe me...Limited bandwidth without any stats is really annoying!
ReplyVery nice information :)) , but now I decide to places my javascript files in my blogger template coz I think there is no one PERFECT free file hosting :p ...
ReplyThx :)
Just an FYI, DataNest no longer allows hotlinking with their free plan. You'll need to get the $7.95 plan to get direct access to your files.
ReplyHi Chris,
ReplyWhat's the source of your info.?
I'm following MDN at Twitter and checked their news feed too, no such announcement has been made by them!
i've register at mydatanest!!thx for the info. :D
ReplyThanks Say, that is great really, i can't do without your blog !
ReplyWasseem
You are welcome Wasseem, Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year in advance :)
ReplyTHANK YOU VERY MUCH!
ReplyI have tried for the past couple of days for numerous HOURS of trying to get my flash file to work. People would sometimes see it after refreshing cause my host was so slow. BUT YOu provided me with an amazing host so I thank you for that. I used SIGMIRROR. Thank you very much! I appreciate it. Keep up the good work.
You are most welcome Bally!
Replythank you. it really help. ^^
ReplySo I never subscribe to you, nor do I ever comment or pay you respect... but TIME AFTER TIME while searching EVERYWHERE for answers, I always somehow wind up here and you've answered it with such clarity (even when I'm initially confused). So thank you for everything.
ReplyAnd PS, mydatanest has been having downtime issues as of late. Kinda sucks when my visitors have to see my navbar freak out on them all of a sudden. I just switched to sigmirror a second ago. Thanks again!
That's a weird comment, anyways I'm glad at least your visits to this blog are giving you some information.
ReplyObviously I have learnt a lot after exploring your blog. Thank you for your wonderful article.
ReplyAva.
Mydatanest has been down for over a week!!!
ReplyYeah problems are there in all free hosting sites, that is why I asked everyone to use both the services, viz. mydatanest and sigmirror. upload files at both these websites and change the links in your templates whenever a site goes down...
Replymydatanest was down only a few hours, last week. however, hotlinking files was restricted only to paying costumers. as of yesterday hotlinkinkg css/js/mp3 and images is allowed to all users.
Replysigmirror is great unfortinately they don't allow MP3 files :(
ReplyThanks for recommending MyDataNest! I'm using it to host files with direct/hot linking, the bandwidth limit is 10GB per month, and it's free! What an awesome solution!
ReplyThanks man.......
ReplyHi,
Replyanyone of you uses MediaFire or Opendrive?
It's strange that they're not mentioned here.
However i'm having problems with both, and i have a paying account!
Sometimes some of my files (at random) are not available.
I'd like to figure out if it is an uptime or high traffic issue.
Hey there,
ReplymediaFire is good too, but here only free services are mentioned. In fact I would be glad if you can compare the paid features of any of those sites with that of MDN+Sigmirror free services.
PS: Don't comment anonymously.
MDN is down more than any hosting site I've ever used, are sure of your findings here? They are extremely unreliable!
ReplyFileDen goes down pretty frequently
ReplyWhen talking about FilDen, it's servers going down is not at all an issue, when you consider the warning messages from Kaspersky, that says "Many virus and trojan files are present on FileDen" posing a threat to those who just visit that site.
ReplySo, as suggested in the post above, register only at MDN.fm (MyDataNest) and OpenDrive.
Thank you for the tip on MyDataNest!
ReplyHow long do files stay in MDN with a free plan?
ReplyWhat's the file life or how long does it take before the files expire and get deleted from their system?
How to keep the files active?
The files will stay forever at MDN and at Opedndrive too...
ReplyThanks for sharing with us such helpful sites to store our data.
ReplyThank you again and wish you the best!
nice article. A little bit outdated now. Check out file hosting directory for a more updated list of video hosting sites. thanks
ReplyI dont need to visit my file storage site often so I dont know for how long, but MDN has disppeared again!!!
ReplyThanks for this article. I'm currently using Google Sites, and works fine for hot-linking. ;)
Replyi am so proud of you.you gave me a new way of hosting files with free hotlinks .thank you very much!
ReplyOpenDrive was the solution for me. Posted their logo on my website and got immediate direct link. Not really a fan of the interface of the downloaded software but, can live with it. Thanks for the article.
ReplyMyDataNest doesn't seem to be working for me. -_- And Open Drive is not free? :(
ReplyI'm still using http://yourjavascript.com/ for almost 3 years and never got a problem.
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