This post will solve one of the main problems faced by Bloggers working on Blogger platform, i.e. to hotlink CSS/JavaScript (.js) files within their templates.
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. MyDataNest,
2. SigMirror,
3. BoxSTr (both SigMirror and BoxSTr are now acquired by OpenDrive)
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.
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 MyDataNest.com
(and also OpenDrive.com)
I would recommend you to register and use both these websites.
MyDataNest.com offers better file management system, with the option to create many folders and sub-folders to organize your files, with download statistics against each shared file.
As most of the files which are needed to be hotlinked are usually JavaScript/CSS files, so diskspace of anything more than 1GB will suffice, but bandwidth requirements may change anytime for any blog/website with increasing popularity and MyDataNest provides maximum bandwidth (20GB/month) among the above listed websites.
So give your first preference to MyDataNest and keep a back up of all your files at OpenDrive.
Finally store all the direct links used in your blog/website in a text file on your PC.
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. All the readers of BloggerStop will straight away get a discount of 50% on any of the listed premium plans (for the first year), by using the coupon code – BLOGGERSTOP
Similarly, at OpenDrive, for the readers of BloggerStop, a restriction on hotlinking files is removed if you register via this link: Register @OpenDrive.
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. MyDataNest,
2. SigMirror,
3. BoxSTr (both SigMirror and BoxSTr are now acquired by OpenDrive)
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 >> | MyDataNest | SigMirror | Boxstr [Now OpenDrive] | FileDen | HotLinkFiles |
Features | |||||
Storage | 2 GB | => | 5 GB | 1 GB | 0 GB |
Bandwidth | 20 GB / Mo | => | 1 GB / Day | 5 GB / Mo | 0 GB |
HotLinking | Allowed | => | Allowed Without Restriction for BloggerStop Visitors | Not Allowed For .js Files | Allowed |
Files Allowed | All | => | All | .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 MyDataNest.com
(and also OpenDrive.com)
I would recommend you to register and use both these websites.
MyDataNest.com offers better file management system, with the option to create many folders and sub-folders to organize your files, with download statistics against each shared file.
As most of the files which are needed to be hotlinked are usually JavaScript/CSS files, so diskspace of anything more than 1GB will suffice, but bandwidth requirements may change anytime for any blog/website with increasing popularity and MyDataNest provides maximum bandwidth (20GB/month) among the above listed websites.
So give your first preference to MyDataNest and keep a back up of all your files at OpenDrive.
Finally store all the direct links used in your blog/website in a text file on your PC.
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. All the readers of BloggerStop will straight away get a discount of 50% on any of the listed premium plans (for the first year), by using the coupon code – BLOGGERSTOP
Similarly, at OpenDrive, for the readers of BloggerStop, a restriction on hotlinking files is removed if you register via this link: Register @OpenDrive.
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