The Ultimate Guide to Download like a PRO from File Hosts (Part 1)

Internet is truly an amazing place. What is not to love about it when it is free? However with these vast information it is hard to find the files (be it movie, music, tv series, or what not) that you wanted to search.

This tutorial will guide you to search for files and download them as effective as possible. It will not cover the torrents.

This tutorial will be divided into 3 parts, which each parts covering different section.
 

In this part of the tutorial you will learn the following:

• Know where to search as well as getting familiarize with each selected sites.
• Know how to use a search query that is concise to nail your search.

Steps after the break.

Step 1 - Know where to search

There are many places to search for links such as forums, search engines, etc. The good place to start your search is always forum as they contains subforums in which each threads are divided properly.

Forums

WarezBB (http://www.warez-bb.org)

 

WarezBB Logo

Best for: ALL types of files
This is by far the most visited forum that I used when searching for, well, basically anything.

Warezbb Homepage

Site Tips:
When searching, make sure you select the category that corespond with the category of your searching files. So when searching for Fringe you will select TV Shows.

Warezbb Search Page

TehParadox (tehparadox.com)

TehParadox Logo

Best for: ALL types of files

Tehparadox Home Page

Site Tips:
You can either use the quick search or advanced search. As the name suggests, quick search will search for results from all categories whereas advanced search allows you to select which categories to search.

Tehparadox Quick Search - quick but you might get a lot of miss

Tehparadox Advanced Search

Legend:
1. Prefixes here simply means the abbreviated form of FileHost. You can select multiple prefixes by keeping the CTRL key pressed, just like when you select multiple files in Windows. Note that selecting multiple filehosts will NOT search for threads that uses multiple uploads. Instead, it will only search for each threads that uses either one of these prefixes.

For a thread that contains links from multiple filehosts, the prefix [MULTI] is used. that thread will not be included as the search result as the prefix [MULTI] is used instead. So it is advisable to choose the [MULTI] prefix if you are searching for threads that contains multiple filehosts,

2. Select your categories here.

Dedicated Forum

There are also dedicated forums that are for specific uploads such as for movies, tv series, etc. These forums will be less cluttered and more focused.

Some recommendations for:
HD Movie, HDTV Series, Ripped, etc.

HD-BB (hdbb.org)

File Hoster Search Engines

If the files that you are searching isn't in the forums, you can try out searching using these dedicated search engines that will only search for the files hosted in a wide variety of file host. Note that it will only search for filename of the uploaded files. So if a movie is The Butterfly Effect but the filename is TBE and you typed the movie title in the search, that file will not appear in your search result.

 

FilesTube (http://www.filestube.com)

 

FilesTube Logo

FilesTube Homepage

Site Tips:

FilesTube Left Sidebar Filter

1. You can select multiple filehosts using the sidebar on the left after you had clicked on one of the file host. By default it will search from All Sites.

2. To boost your chances of success for finding a working links, click the Date on the Relevance field. It is very common for links that are uploaded recently to work. It may still be taken down though.

General Files (http://www.general-files.com)

*For future update.

Search Engine (Google is recommended)

This should be your last resort when searching for files. Make sure you include '-torrent' in your search query to exclude any torrents.

Step 2 - Knowing your search query

A concise search query is very important to search for the files that you want. Most often many people failed to find their desired search results because of this point.

Below is some selection of keywords when searching for:

Movie

Movie name - Released year - [encoder group] - [codec] [resolution]

*[] - Optional field

NOTE:

There are quite some numbers of encoder group when releasing a video in public so make sure you choose the ones that are reputable. Each encoders will have their own set of encoding rules and these might be improved from time to time. So while a movie might be encoded in 1080p, the overall quality of the video might differ from encoders to encoders due to the preset such as video and audio bitrate that are being used.

Try to avoid title such as R5 or TS when searching for movies. These are the movies recorded in cinemas and have a very low video and audio quality. Download these titles only if you just wanted to watch the most recent movie as soon as possible just to know the plot.

Example 1:
You want to search for "The Butterfly Effect" released in year "2004" with HD quality of "1080p". You care about the encoder group and you know their name is "EuReKa".

So your search query would be
The Butterfly Effect 2004 1080p eureka

Example 2:
You want to search for "The Butterfly Effect" released in year "2004" but with a much smaller file size, e.g. BD rip.

So your search query would be
The Butterfly Effect 2004 bdrip

TV Series

TV series name - Season number - Episode number - [encoder group] - [codec] - [resolution]

*[] - Optional field

Example 1:
You want to search for "Desperate Housewives Season 1 Episode 1 HD 720p"
and want to search for release by "encoder group DIMENSION"

So your search query would be
Desperate Housewives S01E01 dimension x264 720p

Example 2:
You want to search for "Desperate Housewives Season 1 Episode 1" but in a smaller file size (implies lower video quality) due to bandwidth limitation or slow download speed. And you don't know or don't care the encoder group as long as you find it.

So your search query would be
Desperate Housewives S01E01 xvid

Step 3 - Understanding the links

So far you know where and how to search for your files. But still there is another question that remains, how to get the links?

It is very common to see a links uploaded as multipart archive. This could be of the several reasons that the uploader had in mind:

• To generate more hits for each files in order to get click profit. Many advertising services such as adf.ly offers revenue for a targetted amount of click, e.g. $10 per visitor click. So if a file is uploaded into 10 different parts, a single downloading visitor will have to click these links 10 times. Hence generating 10 hits. Compare this to a file that is uploaded into 1 big part and it will only generate 1 hit per visitor.
• The limitations of the file host. File host such as MediaFire only allows 200mb per file upload size for free users.
• To make the file downloaded by all, both free and premium users. Some file host imposes some restriction on the maximum file size that is downloadable by a free user. E.g. Uploading.com only allow free user to download file size up to 1GB. To download a file that exceed that file size would then require a premium account. You are most probably seeing this when downloading a movie uploaded with a single link (typically file size that are beyond 1GB).

There are several ways that the uploader would upload their files:

Method 1 - Direct Links

In the older days where copyright issue is still not so highly debated, the uploader would just post their links directly in forum post. The bright side of doing this is for user convenient. All that is required is just highlighting these links and copy them into any download manager. The down side is these links normally would not last long and it will just waste the uploader effort. Many had switched to the other method, which is link encryption.

Method 2 - Encrypted Links

To prevent their files from being crawled by bots or search spiders, most of the uploader are now using services such as nCrypt or Safelinking to encrypt (mask/hide) their direct link. So instead of posting these direct link, an alternative links are posted and user will then be redirected to these sites to decrypt the links. These sites uses varies techniques to prove that only a human could have solve the question with CAPCHA and image recognition being the most common one.

nCrypt Security Check

One problem with encrypting the links is you could not just directly copy and paste them in any download manager and hope the download will start. Details on how to copy this type of link will be covered in Part 2.

Step 4 - Copy the Links

So far you had know the difference types of links. Now we had reached the final step of this part in which you will learn how to copy the links.

File Direct Links

This are the link that are typically ends with the file extension. You can just copy and paste these links into any download manager.

Example:

http://www.wupload.com/desperate.housewives.s08e01.avi

File Masking Link

Many file hosts such as MediaFire, Uploading and Jumbofiles uses link that would require you to go to their site, entering CAPCHA or any security verification, wait for a cretain period of time, and then only a direct download links will be generated. It is these download links that you wanted to copy.

Example:

http://uploading.com/files/98em1919

Note: If you just copy these links into a download manager, it will only fetch a html page instead.

Real direct link (you get this after redirecting to their site and go through certain check such as CAPCHA or waiting period (varies for different file hosts).

http://fs290.uploading.com/get_file/%3DEx1Gilw8004kt6SR3CqH-lZ9hJ8cifjldSbAsYfF4HVEzkme%7CkFI7BE7zsBTlzFvxw-TNCP6YR891xVlhpilNSw4VeWzX72iebfENzyMxtgM7dktN6DNiO0Sa5uBpVh7b0VVeLHy8w49I0icHKlNpRMEoKE44KXgZEaMn3p1IwWi5fF2ThK-CMMOyoBp6OrU2liFRJKLiK-h5kj7XuwFyTTHV3nZezXSIivozh03qWG9KyS18kaMWv1hVReTEl9khXxzrFZn3C4HBJcqnBQCuN1RK-ils-S5eDqkFs0ASo4WzjweS62kV55qaAIIyasEGOsb9-d3VGmHtnaM-JHXU0fRfuLDAMUE6nwmu2RmzuoMN023XUX72wturLgFJdQnJzgGyk2Ufu2Au5zfcD4GUyHv7%7CWBKIe%7CuGO1Gd4hy-z

 

Encrypted Link

Example:

http://safelinking.net/p/ca67f3ca60

You can only paste this link directly into download manager that support link decryption services, such as JDownloader.

Folder Link

Some download manager such as JDownloader are able to fetch all the links in a folder links when you copy the folder link.

Example:

http://ncrypt.in/folder-6d0IH1Pv

Single Embedded Text Link

part01

Highlighting the text > right click > Copy Link Location

Copy Link Location menu in Firefox.

Multiple Embedded Text links

You might have seen links such as:

part01

part02

part03

part04

part05

And if you had just simply highlighting them and select 'Copy Link Location', you will only paste a single link that you right clicked on. To copy these embedded text links, you will need to use a browser extension.

Firefox Add-on - Copy Links

Firefox Copy Links add-on

Chrome Extension - Copy Links

NOTE: Make sure you select 'Copy Selected Links' when highlighting those links. Selecting 'Copy All Links' will copy all the links in that page.



Extra Notes:

• When downloading a file with multiple links (multipart archives), take extra caution to make sure the total number of parts are correct. You wouldn't want to download the whole part only to realized that one part is missing. Besides, also make sure the file size are the same for each and every part of the achives except the last part being the smallest file size among others. 
• Use web services such as http://linkylook.com to check for link status and file size. You could also use JDownloader to do so.

LinkyLook Link Checking Web Service

Conclusion

Hopefully this part of the tutorial will provide you with some understanding on how file sharing works. The next part of this tutorial will teach you how to use two of the popular and versatile download manager (i.e. Internet Download Manager IDM and JDownloader) to download these files effectively.