From time to time I see comments where people compare the download speeds of a multihoster with a premium account from a filehoster that the multihoster supports. Or, for example – comparing the download speeds of a file from Datafile.com using a Linksnappy account versus downloading the file with a DataFile premium account to download that file. Sometimes, those download speeds don’t sync up where downloading a file directly from Datafile.com as a premium account member is faster than accessing that same file through a multihoster service like Linksnappy or Zevera or any other multihost / debrid-type service. There are reasons for that, and I’ll attempt to cover some of the more notable reasons here.
Multihosters – “middlemen” and leeching services
When you download a file from a filehosting site, like, for instance, you visit a Keep2share.cc or Depfile.com and use your premium account to download a file, that transfer of data or downloads take place between your computer and Keep2share’s or Depfile’s servers – there is no middleman in the picture. However, when you use a multihoster service to download that same file from Keep2Share, Depfile, Datafile, Rapidgator or any other filehosting site, the multihoster becomes the “middleman” between your computer and the filehosting site.
Downloads using filehosting sites via a multihoster service take place using a proxy server owned by the multihoster. The same can be said for torrent downloads if a multihoster supports them (which, Linksnappy has a nice torrent downloader), but that’s a different topic entirely. So, when you use a multihoster or debrid-type leeching service to download a file from a premium account filehoster, your computer actually makes the request to the proxy server and the proxy server makes the request to the filehosting site and then the file you want to download is routed through the proxy server back to your computer.
This is both good and bad. Multihoster services using proxy servers to download files on behalf of their members is good because:
- It protects your privacy – Instead of your own IP address accessing the download page from the filehosting site, it’s actually the IP address of the proxy server that belongs to the multihoster service. I have a little writeup of how multihosters protect your privacy when downloading files. Sure, the multihoster service still knows your IP address, but how many times have you read about a multihoster getting shut down and their servers seized? Personally, I haven’t. It’s always the filehosting sites’ servers. According to the server logs on the filehosting site, your IP never downloaded the file. That’s great privacy protection.
- It protects the multihosters’ premium accounts – Multihosters are able to offer their low pricing for premium account access because they leverage their membership base and dozens or scores of premium accounts at a time. Because filehosting sites either frown upon or outright prohibit account sharing, if a multihoster service didn’t use a proxy server to facilitate members downloads, their premium accounts would get shut down much more quickly, which would either increase costs for members or cause the multihoster to eventually shut down completely.
However, the downside is that the proxy server is one more potential bottleneck for your download speed. Just like when a filehosting sites’ servers are overloaded that will cause sluggishness and slowdowns for member’s downloads, if the multihoster’s proxy server is congested or overloaded, even if the filehosting sites’ servers aren’t, it can diminish the potential download speed of the file(s) you want.
Other factors that affect download speeds
Aside from the extra step your downloads take using a multihoster service versus directly downloading from filehosting sites with your own premium account, there are a multitude of other factors that can come into play that will affect your download speed:
- Your own internet connection
- The network path your data transfers / communications take not only between you and the proxy, but the proxy and the download server.
- The available resources on your computer (low memory or CPU or even a bad hard drive can ultimately affect your computer’s ability to download files at full speed)
- The available resources on both the proxy server and the download server
- Your physical distance between the proxy server and the proxy server’s distance from the download server
In best-case scenarios, any slowdowns due to using a multihoster to download a file versus a premium account with the same filehosting site is negligible. As an aside, if you can see the URL of the download server and your downloads are running slow, you can run a tracert (Windows) or traceroute (Linux) from the command prompt / terminal to see if there are any congestion along the path that might be causing issues.
Here’s an example of a download server URL. This is from a Linksnappy torrent download, but the idea is the same. Filehosters and multihosters even use many, many different servers to serve up downloads to members:
Take that URL and run a tracert or traceroute command like so:
If there were problems in the network path between the two points, you would see higher numbers where it says 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms, etc – since Linksnappy is hosted overseas, seeing 200 ms pings is expected, but if you’re seeing 300-1,000 or greater or seeing an asterisk (*) anywhere, that’s indicative of a problem in the path itself which will definitely cause slow download issues.
Multihoster accounts and download speeds
In many cases, any losses in download speeds while using a premium multihoster account to download files is small to unnoticeable at all. It is a part of the tradeoff, however. Instead of spending $10-$13 or €10 on a single premium account where your download activity is plain as day on the download servers, for the same price you can get access to dozens or even scores of premium accounts for high-speed downloads with better privacy protection. And, if you’re going to pick a multihoster service, I’m right now recommending Linksnappy. It’s been a long time since I used torrents in any capacity, but their torrent download tool is pretty awesome. I’m actually downloading files using torrents again without having to worry about the continual oversight and scrutiny I’d face if downloading torrents using my own internet connection.
June 8, 2015 at 12:34 am
good