Plus you can easily find out the direct link of the download… click your own download, then copy and paste the “Download not started? Click here to try again” link, or something similar to that.

You can then put up your own website (tons of free hosting sites with no ads), have a download button that links to the direct link from FileFront.

FileFront: http://filefront.com/

There’s no bandwidth limitations, or total size of files for one account. The 600 MB limitation for each file is basically the only one.

As I mentioned, I don’t plan on having a ton of users join so I am not too worried, and I do monitor the bandwidth usage, disk usage, etc.

That’d be nice, and it is probably something file hosts should do, but if you’re not sure if you’re going to make enough money for the next month of hosting, the last thing you want to do is discourage users from getting onto the site – all that will do is guarantee that you won’t make your quota. And the users all pulling their files off at once will bog down your site and could potentially put you over bandwidth limits.

The fact of the matter is, file hosting is a tough business to get into. You have to constantly monitor the activities of your site so you can tune the limits to suit both your audience and yourself, and you have to be aggressive with advertising. The file hosting sites that are “successful” (read: persisting) suck because they are covered in ads and have limits that box free users in – but they are like that because that’s probably the only way they can make it.

Regardless, I’ve seen enough of these startup file hosts go down to know that, as Philip mentioned below, they aren’t a good bet for long term file storage. In a way, it’s a shame that so many people target the GMC with these sorts of sites, because even with a month or two advance notice, losing a file host that many in the community use is a drag for everyone.

I agree that a lot of people are affected when a web hosting site goes down, but the number of people affected could be reduced if the website gave some notification (and doesn’t just go offline suddenly). If the web host creator could manage to pay for one additional month before going offline, I think that would give people plenty of time to gather all of their files off the website and update their links to another host.

For one, bandwidth and file space – WHFF is a good example of what happens when growth in those areas outpaces funding and development. If the site goes down because the proprietor didn’t plan ahead for these things, a lot of people are affected.

And second, I think security and privacy are very important – and with small startup hosting sites, you never know what you’re going to get. Are files encrypted? Are user details, especially passwords, encrypted? Are directories given proper permissions? Etc, etc.

Decent article, but I would have liked GMB to cover this with just a little more depth.