Rapidshare becomes history

Mr.Kickass

In the zone
RapidShare, once the most popular file-hosting service in the Internet, has announced that it will shut down next month. The company doesn't cite a reason for the surprising shutdown, but losing the majority of its users in recent years after the implementation of tough anti-piracy measures is likely to be connected.

Founded in 2002, Swiss-based RapidShare was one of the first and most popular one-click file-hosting services on the Internet.

Like most sites of this nature, RapidShare was frequently used by people to share copyright-infringing material. It was a relationship that got the company into trouble on various occasions.

RapidShare fought many legal battles with entertainment companies seeking to hold the company liable for the actions of its users, and to top it off the site was called out by the U.S. Government as a “notorious market.”

Hoping to clear up its image the company made tremendous efforts to cooperate with copyright holders and limit copyright infringements. Among other things, the company adopted one of the most restrictive sharing policies while (re)branding itself as a personal cloud storage service.

The anti-piracy measures seemed to work, but as a result RapidShare’s visitor numbers plunged. The dwindling revenues eventually cost most of RapidShare’s employees their jobs.

Today marks the beginning of the final chapter in RapidShare’s controversial history. The company just announced that it will shut down at the end of March and is recommending that users store their files elsewhere.

*torrentfreak.com/images/rsclosed.png​

“Kindly note that RapidShare will stop the active service on March 31st, 2015. Extensions of STANDARD PLUS and PREMIUM will be possible until February 28th, 2015,” RapidShare writes on its homepage.

“We strongly recommend all customers to secure their data. After March 31st, 2015 all accounts will no longer be accessible and will be deleted automatically,” the company adds.

TF asked the company for further details on the planned shutdown but we have yet to hear back. The most likely explanation is that RapidShare can’t sustain its business with the smaller number of users it has today.

The demise of RapidShare marks the end of an era. Half a decade ago RapidShare was listed among the 50 most-visited sites on the Internet, with hundreds of millions of page-views per month, but in a just a few weeks it will be gone.

(Source)
 

Flash

Lost in speed
Whenever i find a file link to Rapidshare, i was always treated with "RapidShare: 404 Not Found". Not a surprise to many.
 

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
I use to use Rapidshare a lot back in the days to download various ahem stuff. But torrents changed the market and i no longer needed file hosting services like Rapidshare.

Its always sad to see old services beginning to shutdown tough.
 

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
Yes, such centralized hosting services became obsolete when P2P started. Also, centralized hosting and sharing services are easier to track down and shutdown for digital rights groups.
 

tkin

Back to school!!
All files 404, it's time this went down. I found that Google drive services legal file sharing much better and for illegal stuff you know what you want.
 

sling-shot

Wise Old Owl
There are some good reasons still to use a service such as Rapidshare. It may not be good to put all eggs in one basket. Privacy minded people too might like discrete independent providers.
 

tkin

Back to school!!
You mean Google Drive and Privacy? :lol:
Sign up for a dummy google account with a new fake email id and use drive as a sharing site ONLY. Google can collect no more data on you than Rapidshare can if you do not connect that email id to your android mobile, or other services like facebook.
 

Zangetsu

I am the master of my Fate.
I remember downloading files from Rapidshare those days it was the most popular untill other file sharing landed on internet

Rapidshare waiting times timer was most famous of all
 

icebags

Technomancer
Sign up for a dummy google account with a new fake email id and use drive as a sharing site ONLY. Google can collect no more data on you than Rapidshare can if you do not connect that email id to your android mobile, or other services like facebook.

there is no word called private in google world, no matter how many accounts u open, they will track u out from anywhere. :lol:

hell, they even tracked my facebook account which i had with a non google indian email account, but in past i used the same email for a youtube account before youtube google merging. then they asked me if i want to merge/ link my facebook with my primary google email account lol. :lol:

they can even track you with your access ips, search interests, daily online time. if u use android, then rest assured, they know a lot about you than u can imagine, even if u dont give away a thing, they will just connect it from ir contacts.
 

Nishant

Broken In
Reminds me of old days. This site was so popular that various rapidshare downloader applications popped up on internet. They use to bypass the captcha and waiting time, rapishare changes its security, new updates to applications comes to bypass new security, this cat and mouse game never ended. It has now.
 

mitraark

Decrepit
Had been a premium member of Real Debrid for 2 years from 2011. Rapidshare had already lost a significant amount of market share by then because they were bound by tough anti piracy laws and no pirated content remained on their servers for long. I mostly used Filefactory and Netload links at that time, maybe now the most popular ones are something different.

My point is, it's hardly surprising that they are shutting down, and in now way is it sudden.
 
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