"wasbit" wrote

| Perhaps you could suggest somewhere free that will host these text files.
|
People who use those sites will know better than
I do, but I do keep a list of sites where I can get
files without trouble and sites where I can't. I'd
also be curious to see other lists, if you keep lists
for different categories of software.

My list of sites, though some are probably only for images:

--------------------------------
Sites that are broken:

Images:
photobucket.com
tinypic.com
flickr.com

Files:
Google docs
box.net
---------------------------------
Sites that work:

Images:
imgur
postimg.org
pictr.com
uploads.im

Files:
fileconvoy.com
-----------------------------

Special case: Dropbox. Dropbox is a unique case
that I don't entirely understand. Unfortunately, most
people who use it also don't understand. It seems
that one needs to read detailed instructions to figure
out their options.

Sometimes someone sends a link to a folder and
there seems to be no way to access it without joining
somehow. Other times people link to dropboxusercontent
and I can easily download the file. A third case is that
they link to dropbox and the URL ends with "dl=0". If
I change the 0 to 1 then putting the URL into my browser
will give me a download dialogue.

OneDrive: I've only needed to deal with OneDrive once
or twice. There don't seem to be many people using it.
I discovered a trick for that:

OneDrive download:

Enter file link.
Block redirect.
In resulting redirect link in address bar, repalce redir with download.
Run that link.

I block redirects normally, so this is easy for me. Other
people would need to adjust browser settings.

A list of easy, simple file hosters might be handy, if
someone has such a list. But I don't know how realistic
it is. If sites don't charge and can't show ads, how will
they make a living?

Having your own webhost, or paying for file storage
space, would be the clean way to host files. But that
also gets complicated. You have to know about webpage
coding or, at the very least, how to upload files via
FTP to your site, if you get a domain and website. And a
lot of webhosting is cheapo, with strict limits on file
downloads, and ads on pages. The cheapo sites don't
expect you to really use the resources.

I don't know about paid storage deals.

But we can't really expect companies to be honest
and non-sleazy when their only business model is to
squeeze profit from people who refuse to pay for the
service.
It seems that nearly everyone has acclimated to the
idea that everything should be free and easy. As a
result, we've acclimated to having sleazy companies own
our stuff. Facebook even owns peoples' social lives. But
how many would pay for a legitimate social site? Especially
when they already think their social lives belong to
Facebook, tolerating Facebook and advertisers changing
their posts, inserting ads, and deciding which posts they'll
see from others.

I once spent an afternoon with an acquaintance who
does tech support for a living. He uses a gmail address
and milks dropbox for all it's worth, storing his work files,
like bootable repair disk ISOs, on dropbox. He sets up
his customers the same way. He's training people to
disregard honesty and privacy, and to join the online
melee where we all try to grab a freebie from the snake
oil salesman before he can pick our pocket.
When I asked him about giving people options he got
mad and said a tech support person has no business telling
people how to use their computer. Just so. He had no idea
that he was doing just that. It had never occurred to him
that there was any way to operate other than using freebie,
spyware email and avoiding payment for dropbox's services.