RapidShare.com - News
17. April 2008 - Captcha stories, happy hours
As every free user should have noticed, we are experimenting once again with the CAPTCHA system. The reason is that RapidShare
is popular enough for people to create tools to download from RapidShare as a free user as if they were a premium user. This
has a negative impact for our paying premium users, since they expect a fast download. On the other hand we are also
experimenting with happy hours again. When our servers have enough spare bandwidth, we will make it easier for free users
to download from RapidShare, knowing that this also makes it possible again to automatically download files with those tools.
Right now the RapidShare Happy Hours will disable the download tickets and the captchas completely.
21. January 2008 - "RapidShare Manager" released
RapidShare's own upload/download software RSM (RapidShare Manager) is now available.
- Convenient downloads for Premium users
- Upload resume is possible
- Premium users can upload files with up to 2 GB size
20. January 2008 - Problems accessing RapidShare
Unfortunately, starting at 5 pm CET, one of our carriers experienced a severe technical problem with their hardware, causing a
loss of 50 gigabit of bandwidth. Therefore RapidShare was unavailable for several hours. We already have taken steps to avoid
this particular problem in the future.
17. January 2008 - Winner of our high-end PC
The winner is Matthias C., Brühl (Germany). Congratulations!
31. December 2007 - A happy new year
The whole RapidShare team wishes our customers all the best for the year 2008. Especially for the observing reader of our news
page, we have planned a special event for new years eve. Exactly at 00:00 CET it is possible for one hour to extend existing accounts
or create new accounts with premium points for 3333 points instead of 10000 points.
10. December 2007 - Drawing: High-end PC
All our premium users can participate in the drawing of a high-end PC.
The contest ends on January 15, 2008. You can find the form for participating in the premium zone.
10. December 2007 - New feature: Send links via e-mail
Free users can now e-mail their links to up to three recipients directly after the upload. If this feature turns out to be
serviceable it will of course also be implemented for premium users.
18. November 2007 - Server upgrades finished, more bandwidth, looking forward
The performance problems noticed by some users should be fixed now. We have integrated many new servers
and we have got a new 10 Gigabit Port dedicated for german users, which of course means international users will
now have more free bandwidth on the other ports. Nevertheless our team already started working on the next major
upgrade. In January already we will implement two new 10 Gigabit Ports and 1.6 Petabytes of new storage.
1. October 2007 - More servers coming soon
Unfortunately right now there are some speed issues appearing on the weekends and/or some free users being unable
to always get a free download slot because our infrastructure is on its limit.
We are working hard to fix this problem and we are looking forward to enable the new servers within the next two weeks.
6. August 2007 - More bandwidth, more storage
A new RapidShare segment has been created, boosting the available bandwidth to 140 Gigabit/s and the available space to
overwhelming 3.5 Petabytes. We will add more carriers to the segment in time. Enjoy your experience.
12. June 2007 - Now 110 Gigabit of bandwidth
We have just integrated a new port, boosting RapidShare's bandwidth to a total of 110 GBit/s now. This port is dedicated for
users of the German Telekom, which means that it is not selectable from the list of mirrors. However, by routing those
german users to the new port, more bandwidth will be available to our international users.
23. May 2007 - More connectivity, more service
RapidShare has now 100 Gigabit of Internet bandwidth, which is completely dedicated to our customers.
Because of this speed boost, we have decided to disable the download tickets again.
We hope that we will be able to provide another 10 Gigabit of Internet bandwidth within next week.
Furthermore RapidShare also offers professional webhosting now. You only need a simple premium account to start
providing direct downloads to your users. More information can be found in your premium zone.
5. May 2007 - Countdown reactivated
The countdown for download tickets has been reactivated. The actual waiting time for free users will depend on the system utilization.
28. Apr. 2007 - Storage time doubled
RapidShare has doubled the storage time for free users from 45 days to 90 days. Premium users of course can still store their files
permanently without any inactivity timeout.
5. Apr. 2007
RapidShare wishes you a Happy Easter!
During the holidays the countdown for download tickets is deactivated. Free users can directly enter the security code (captcha).
4. Apr. 2007
We are proud to announce that RapidShare continues growing. We'd like to thank all our customers for their confidence in our company.
After several weeks of planning we have completed another extension of our system. We can offer you almost twice as much capacity
as before, and the decrease in speed that occurred during some hours of the day has been eliminated. Furthermore our support has
been expanded so that our phone support is available almost around the clock from Monday to Friday.
22. Feb. 2007
Since we have a nice number of supporters working for you now, we have decided to enable the promised telephone support.
Under "Support" you can find the international telephone number, which is available for you to help you with questions
and problems about RapidShare. Friendly and competent supporters will be available for you from 9 am to 6 pm CET.
You can talk in English or German. Our supporters can handle both languages very well. Of course you can also use our
e-mail support, which is now working without the automatic reply. This means your mail will immediately be forwarded to
our supporters. We hope to work like this customer oriented way in the future as well and we are always open for
suggestions from our customers.
13. Feb. 2007
Since we have made some changes to our servers yesterday, our RapidUploader does not work anymore. We have uploaded an
updated and working version of the RapidUploader. You can get the new version via our homepage or by using the automatic updater,
which will be executed if you try to run an outdated RapidUploader version.
13. Feb. 2007
All routing problems have been successfully solved. Right now the RapidShare system works under high load,
which might result in a lower download performance in peak times. To solve this problem, we will significantly
extend the RapidShare network in March. We will add 30 gigabit of bandwidth and 600 Terabytes of hard disk capacity.
RapidShare will be the greatest and fastest webhoster in the future as well, because it is our job to make our customers happy.
12. Feb. 2007
Right now we are experiencing a heavy routing problem, which results in a poor reachability of our networks.
We are working hard on this issue right now.
11. Feb. 2007
Due to the massive growth of RapidShare, we had to make some complex changes to the databases to avoid performance
problems in the future. For this reason there were two phases of around 30 minutes where RapidShare was not reachable.
Thank you for your understanding.
9. Feb. 2007
The traffic limit of 20 GB has been raised to 25 GB again. Of course we will keep the low prices in the future as well, including new
features and more bandwidth. It is important to us that our customers are happy. If you have ideas on how we can improve
RapidShare even more, please do not hesitate to write us an e-mail.
30. Jan. 2007
We have decided to keep the prices we have right now. This means that you can purchase your premium accounts or extend your
existing accounts by paying much less than in the past. Furthermore we have adjusted the traffic management as well because some
people did not understand the old system. Unfortunately a traffic management is necessary to keep the prices we have right now.
Within five days you may download 20 GB. For example you may download day by day 4 GB without any interruption. An alternative
is that you download 10 GB today, 10 GB tomorrow with a break following the next three days. We think this management is by far
more flexible than a strict 4 GB per day rule. We hope you share this opinion with us.
10. Jan. 2007
Today we have integrated two new carriers in our network. Now you can download your files via VSNL and GlobalCrossing as well.
We hope that you can download files even faster now. Especially users in countries, where the existing carriers have not the biggest
lines will be able to download files much faster than before. Just check out which carrier is the fastest for you.
RapidShare is now by far the most flexible and fastest file hoster with the most extensive backbone network world wide.
2. Jan. 2007
Our supporters have received many e-mails with customers asking us why the special-offer is only valid for new accounts whether we
don't care for our existing customers. To show you how much we care for our customers, we have extended the special offer until
31.1.2007 and furthermore its now also working for our existing customers. This means you can now also extend your existing
account for 30% less than the original price.
1. Jan. 2007
Since many users were on holidays while our special-offer was valid, we have decided to extend the special-offer until 31.1.2007.
This means you can still buy a premium account for 30% less than the original price.
30. Dec. 2006
Today we have installed a new logo on our website. We hope you like it. Furthermore we will offer something very nice for the attentive
user at New Year's Eve. On 1.1.2007 at 00:00 sharp central european time (CET) you will be able to convert 1000 of your premium points
instead of 10000 points. This means you can extend your account for a month by spending only 1000 points. You can also create a new
account for only 1000 points. This special offer is only valid for exactly one hour, so from 00:00 to 00:59 am. We wish you all the
best and a happy new year!
22. Dec. 2006
Our linux department was on holidays for two days with the order to program two OpenSource upload-scripts.
The target audience is the professional linux user, who is searching for comfortable ways to upload files to RapidShare.
For the first time we have used the new RS API, which contains numerous valuable functions making it possible to write
comfortable and feature-rich upload-managers for RapidShare. For example its now possible to resume aborted uploads
including a MD5-check after the upload is completed to ensure the upload worked as it should.
Two scripts have been created. The first script, which you can download here
already contains everything you need to upload files as a free/collector's/premium-user. Just the upload-resume is missing here.
However, this script is rather well documented and easier to understand than the second script. The second script is
based on the first script and extended by the new upload-resume. This feature makes the second script more complex than the first one.
You can download the second script here. Please notice that
these scripts are created for the professional computer user. If you need help with this scripts, please talk to computer experts you
know. Unfortunately we cannot provide support for these scripts.
We hope that our windows department will include the new RS API in their programs within the next weeks so that upload resume
is possible there as well. Since the RS API functions are available for everyone, we hope that we will see some nice upload managers
with upload resume very soon. We will try to contact the programmers of the best upload managers and implement the
programs in our website. If you have suggestions regarding our scripts, feel free to contact our support. Drop us a mail as well
if you want some additional RS API functions for your programs. Maybe we will implement it.
18. Dec. 2006
The christmas feeling has of course also caught the RapidShare team. Whilecelebrating the RapidShare christmas party, we
have decided to give you a present as well. We lowered the prices of the premium accounts by 30%. This special offer
is valid until 1.1.2007. Furthermore its now possible to pay from all over the world by using our new wire transfer
payment possibility. The whole RapidShare team wishes you a merry christmas and a happy new year.
13. Dec. 2006
Since a few users had problems with the new AniCaptcha, we have replaced the Captcha with a more conventional one.
7. Dec. 2006
Unfortunately we had to reactivate the traffic limit due to the traffic trend during the time without a download limit.
The high traffic volume was mostly caused by abuse of several accounts. We're sorry that the measures we have to take against
this abuse also introduce restrictions to honest customers. But solving problem by means of a traffic limit is better than raising
the prices of premium accounts.
We have also changed the captchas (code pictures) free users have to enter before downloading, because there has also been massive abuse.
These changes bring advantages for normal users who have average (or slightly above average) traffic needs. We hope there will be more
speed for your downloads available now. We apologize for slow download speed on certain servers during the last few days.
25. Nov. 2006
Today we have made many internal changes in the session management of the downloads to make the system ready for future
enhancements. The most visible change is that we have removed the traffic limit completely. You can finally download without
any limits now. Please take notice that account-sharing, i.e. to share your premium account with other people, is not allowed.
In case you use a download manager, you should know that changes happened here as well. Those changes only apply for you if you
used to insert direct links (http://rapidshare.com/files/837261/635273483/file.zip) in your download manager instead of the normal
RapidShare URL (http://rapidshare.com/files/837261/file.zip). There are no download sessions for premium users anymore.
To successfully use a download manager of your choice, please follow these steps:
1. Start your download manager
2. Add one or more conventional RapidShare URLs in the download queue.
3. Enter your premium login and password in the given form of your download manager BEFORE you start the download.
4. Start your download
It is important to enter your premium details in the download manager before you start the download. Only this way your
program knows about your premium membership and only this way it will tell our server about it as well so we can recognize you.
Attention: Please only use well-known download managers like GetRight or FlashGet. We got notice about the fact that some
questionable "download managers" send your login and password to other people!
Another hint: In your premium zone in "Options" you can set up many important features of your account. For example the
"mirror pre-selection" where you can set up your favourite mirror. Especially for users going online over the German Telekom
we strongly recommend not to use the Cogent mirror. The Cogent-DTAG peer is completely full right now. Unfortunately this problem
is out of our influence.