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Megaupload

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Megaupload Limited
Type of businessLimited
Type of site
one-click hosting website
Available in18 languages
Founded2005
HeadquartersHong Kong
Key peopleKim Schmitz (CEO) Finn Batato (CMO)
URLmegaupload.com
LaunchedMarch 21, 2005 (2005-03-21)

Megaupload is an online Hong Kong-based company established in 2005 for the use of uploading and downloading files. It includes a video browsing section in the site Megavideo as well as a sister company called Megaporn (formerly Megarotic) which hosts uploaded pornographic content, but provides no free services.

Usage

The basic service is available for free and allows users to upload files of up to 2048 MB. Free users cannot download files larger than 1 GB, however. Free registered users are offered 200 GB of total file storage. Premium users have unlimited file storage. After a successful file upload, the user is given a unique URL which allows others to download the file.

Any file uploaded anonymously will expire if there are no downloads for at least 21 days. For free registered accounts, the expiration period is 90 days. Premium accounts have no expiration period as long as the user remains a premium member.[2]

Users must fill a text-based CAPTCHA when downloading a file. Non-registered users have to wait 45 seconds in the download queue and a certain amount of time between transfers after a certain number of megabytes had been downloaded.[2] Registerd users have to wait 25 seconds in the download queue.

Note that even paying members do not get a direct hotlink for non-paying members to download. Non-members trying to download an uploaded file are forced to MegaUpload's site and have to wait 45 seconds to initiate a download.

MD5 Checks

MegaUpload employs MD5 to identify and avoid the storage of duplicated files.[3] A master server stores MD5 hashes along with their server numbers. When a file is uploaded through Mega Manager, a query to the master server with its hash is sent before any data. If a match is found, the file is not uploaded again. This was discovered by deliberately uploading two files with identical content but different names. Only the file which was uploaded first remained in the server. Attempts to upload the second file failed because Megaupload regarded it as an existing file.

Internationalization

The website is localized in 20 languages, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese

Software

Mega Manager

Mega Manager screenshot

Megaupload also released its upload/download manager, Mega Manager[4], a download manager which features a link-checker for Megaupload links as well as options to manage uploaded files, and to access the online control box that is also on the Megaupload site. Mega Manager bears striking resemblances to Conceiva DownloadStudio v5, self-evident in its "Options..." dialog box and some other aspects of the program. Mega Manager allows to automatically resume interrupted up- and downloads, which is especially important when transferring large files or transferring several files unattendedly. Mega Manager has recently known to be faulty with its built-in Filemanager, as new files with their Megaupload links are not being displayed, only files four months and older. A quick email to Megaupload Support[5] helps correct this issue, but only for files that a user has posted up until they contacted them, future files are still not being displayed.

Criticism

Megaupload Toolbar is claimed to redirect users to a custom error page when a 404 error occurs in the user's browser as well as contains spyware.[6] [dead link] The custom pages, however, can be disabled only in Internet Explorer, not in Mozilla Firefox even if the correct configuration is made.[citation needed] However, FBM software asserts that the Megaupload toolbar is free of spyware.[7]

Although its incorporation in Hong Kong, the company does not operate in Hong Kong. Users with Hong Kong IPs have been banned since 2009. Not even the homepage was accessible by them. Any purchased premium accounts will still be able to access the Megaupload site in Hong Kong until the last membership day. Some third party download managers can circumvent this, for example, the Megamanager.

Censorship

Access to Megaupload has been blocked by the internet authorities in Saudi Arabia. This information is current as of August 5, 2009. Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology is responsible for regulating the internet and for hosting a firewall which blocks access to thousands of websites, mainly due to sexual and political content. Megavideo has also been blocked in the United Arab Emirates due to pornographic content which is accessible.

See also

References

  1. ^ megaupload.com - Traffic Details from Alexa
  2. ^ a b "Megaupload FAQ".
  3. ^ Megaupload and MD5
  4. ^ http://www.megaupload.com/manager/
  5. ^ http://www.megaupload.com/support
  6. ^ Megaupload Toolbar is a Spyware which Changes Browser Settings, TheCredence.com, 13/08/08
  7. ^ "MegaUpload Toolbar on Spyware-Net". Retrieved 2009-11-08.
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