ADrive wants to inform its Basic account holders of service changes that relate to free services. These changes will improve speed and service for our Signature, Premium and Enterprise level customers and free Basic users alike. The following changes have been implemented or will be implemented on the dates listed below:
Concurrent Downloads Limited - The purpose of reducing the amount of concurrent downloads to Basic user's public files is to attempt to reduce the amount of bandwidth consumed by free public file sharing. Basic users can still share files, but only 5 downloads of a single file can be done at the same time. This is currently in place, as of our last release.
1 TB File Sharing Limit - After serving several exabytes of public file data over the lifetime of our service, we have decided that the cost for hosting files at its current level of service is not scalable to the costs associated with it. Instead of shutting off the public file service for Basic users completely, we have decided to attempt to reduce the amount of traffic by imposing a 1 TB File Sharing Bandwidth Limit. This will effect very few users by our calculations. This change will take place on February 28, 2009.
Public File Expiration – Public files shared by our free users will expire 14 days after they were originally shared. You will be able to re-share these files, although the links will change. Once again, we are trying to improve service for our customers and Basic users alike. This will be put into effect on February 28, 2009.
Please send any feedback regarding these changes to feedback@adrive.com.
We thank you for using ADrive and invite you to try a FREE 14-Day Trial of our Signature and Premium services. None of these changes effect Signature, Premium, or Enterprise level customers.
Thanks,
-ADrive team
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18 comments:
Regarding "Public File Expiration – Public files shared by our free users will expire 14 days after they were originally shared. You will be able to re-share these files, although the links will change. Once again, we are trying to improve service for our customers and Basic users alike. This will be put into effect on February 21, 2009." This i do not agree with as it totaly defeats the object & is going to lose you users! To me this will mean me having to change the links every fortnight on the forums i have put many many links which is a joke! I agree with the bandwidth limiter for basic accounts etc but limiting the Public File Expiration to 14 days is just too much and if this does come into effect i will be leaving Adrive to someone else who doesnt punish free users in this silly way! We have just put in a thread on the forum with links to online storage's we recommend & i have put down Adrive which if this 14 days Public File Expiration goes ahead then i will have to remove it. All these months ive spent uploading files to my account will have been a waste of time if you go ahead with this :(
Well, I appreciate your comments and I'm sorry you're upset. It wasn't something that we wanted to do, but we had to face the reality that expiring public files in this way would improve service for all of our users. Links will not change for our Signature and Premium customers.
This is so disappointing news. I suppose you're now going to be a very empty file hosting due to that.
Can't you just apply file expiration based on when the user has last logged in, not from the date of file upload? That would help delete inactive files, while keeping those whose users are active and caring.
"This will be put into effect on February 28, 2009."
Hey, does this mean that my current links will disappear on the 28th or 14 days after that date ?
The main reason for using adrive (for me) was that files don't expire... what's the alternative ? Edit all my posts on various forums every 2 weeks... or find another host.
I have to ask, did you consider all the alternatives ? Like adding more ads on download pages, introducing wait times, etc.
Also, when the current situation improves (i.e. ad revenue down due to the "recession") will you be restoring permanent links ?
Thanks for your comments. As I understand it, links will expire over the course of seven days starting on February 28, as our servers move through the files. It could happen February 28 or as late as seven days from then. Permanent links exist for our subscribers, so it's not really a matter of re-establishing them sometime later.
I see what you're getting at, but more advertising won't improve our download and upload times, our customer service, or the user experience at ADrive. If there hadn't been a "recession" we still would've done the same thing. The point here isn't to punish our basic users. The point is to improve service for everyone, especially those users who find ADrive helpful enough to subscribe to our services.
Let me ask you. What would you pay per year to not have your links expire?
Thank you for your reply, unfortunately I'm in the "starving college student" phase at the moment. So that would be a 0 from me. :(
But 1-2$ a month or 12-24$ per year sounds reasonable. Anyone else ?
Thanks for your response. I was thinking less than that actually. I can look into offering this.
I can live with all the upcoming changes but forcing links to expire AND change them every 14 days sounds draconian and unfair.
What ADrive is doing is this: on one hand, the company is so incredibly generous to offer 1TB file sharing limit, on the other it does everything it can to make sure the "basic" user does not get to use it. Why offer such large bandwidth limit? It's a GIMMICK.
The users who share large files in popular places will get to quickly use quite a bit of bandwidth.
The truly "basic" user, who shares a few files and/or pictures for their personal use is forced into a constant link update routine.
That's BS and is wrong.
I would recommend, as an example, offering a smaller bandwidth limit to those who want it, without expiring their sharing status and links. That way some can share a FEW files, without dramatically impacting the bandwidth consumption.
Those who in fact ARE sharing large files, allow them: a) 1TB of bandwidth and b) pay a fee for permanent links.
Thanks
Or maybe turn on the file expiration only for files larger than 10 MB? Can't you do at least that much?
These are all good ideas and I will discuss them with our team today and keep you updated. Some form of permanent links offering does seem in order for those who share smaller files. I realize that this seems unfair to some of our users, but it helps ADrive to keep our public file sharing backend clean and improve service for our customers. Keep in mind that almost all file sharing service expire public files. They tend to delete them as well. We're not doing that. In the end, it is a free service and we encourage you to try our paid services for public files that won't expire. We appreciate your feedback. Thanks for using ADrive.
I'm glad to see that this discussion is still going. And to thank the people at adrive for listening.
Regarding expiring links by other sites, they usually do a removal after [insert number here] days of inactivity, not by using an arbitrary number like the date the file became public. This seems a good way to clean up the site of dead weight. And as an earlier user suggested, make the rules flexible, according to filesize or bandwidth consumption.
Suggestion: on public files, list the number of days until expiration in the Filemanager.
Just as I started to tell people that they should use ADrive, "It's my fav", I read this post. To be exact my only problem is the 14 days and a file will be unshared. This will not only decrease your basic users but your premium & signature users as well - everyone will be discouraged to use ADrive because, others will always ask them to upload to other file hosts...Anyway all I can say "wtf ur screwed!!!" it's not a loss to me but a loss to you!
Well, Signature and Premium user's links won't expire, so I don't really think it will effect their use of the site. In fact, it will improve performance for them, so it's actually a positive there.
With unsharing the files each 14 days no basic user will upload files and share them, and I do not think that a signature or a premium user will pay for sharing his files in forums and sites, I understand you are not a file sharing service but you must have known when you added the ability for sharing the files it will be used for sharing files in forums, people usually upload files and share them to earn money not to pay money, this will make your site less known and of course this will decrease the number of your signature and premium users, as no one will subscribe in a service he never heard about, any way I understand why you taken this decision and respect it, and many thanks for the long time you provided a very excellent service with no charge, I just wished if it lasted more for us non-profit uploaders, ADrive still a great service for upload and share files with friends and family as it meant to be used.
I am still looking forward to ADrive allowing non-expiring links up to a certain bandwidth/file size limit for occasional basic users and keeping the limits to those with more demanding needs. Basic accounts should not be abused but they should not be a major pain either.
Thanks for the comments all. We are considering making a special class of user account for bloggers and others who wish to share files within a certain bandwidth limit. I will let you know when we make a decision regarding this issue.
Are there any news about this issue ?
Is the Public File Expiration confirmed for basic accounts ? I'm considering to migrate in this case. I'm not able to refresh all the links in my blog :-(
Yes, public file expiration is active for basic, free accounts.
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