ID:2319162
 
(See the best response by Ter13.)
So apparently BYOND does not support Dropbox, Google Drive, or Mega Cloud Storage. Ozibox's website isn't working right now either.

Are there ANY cloud storage or file hosting sites that work with BYOND? And why do none of them work anymore?
Best response
This is less on BYOND and more on file storage sites disabling direct downloads.

Basically, all of these sites don't like allowing direct downloads because it leeches bandwidth without forcing the user to navigate through a sea of ads, download buttons, popups, and malware.

Become a member. BYOND will host your files, and is fairly generous about how much bandwidth and space is permitted for members.
In response to Ter13
Pay $10 minimum just to upload a single zip file for the community to use as it sees fit? Seems a bit of a stretch in terms of reasoning.

This is a contradiction in my opinion. I understand it isn't quite BYOND's fault, but forcing its users to pay to become a member just to upload free resources for everyone to use is outrageous.

I'm sorry, but I cannot justify myself paying to add resource content. I'd love to support BYOND, if that wasn't the case.
I'm sorry, but I cannot justify myself paying to add resource content. I'd love to support BYOND, if that wasn't the case.

You are kind of paying to upload anything anywhere. By directing people to content uploaded elsewhere, you are subjecting them to malware, ransomware, malicious ads, and all sorts of unsavory garbage. That's the price of free.

To add insult to injury, so many file hosts have come and gone over the years that it's likely the resources will disappear from the internet in 5 years or less.

BYOND has had stable file hosting since 2005. If it's a software suite that you use frequently, are passionate about, and attempts to compensate you for your support by hosting your contributions to it, IMO $2 a month is a more than reasonable ask.


And yeah, nobody is forcing you to become a member to upload free resources. You are free to do that on free file hosting services. The services you are asking why BYOND doesn't work properly with are forcing you to subject the people interested in your product to malicious ads and malware as a trade for serving your traffic (temporarily). BYOND simply isn't in a financial position to offer unlimited file hosting, and asks for a one time donation in order to upload assets permanently over the duration of your membership.


Look at it this way: You are paying either way. At least paying BYOND, you know that the money is going to a service you already support, and nobody's at risk of clicking the wrong download button and taking out their lack of an adblocker on you. Or for that matter, coming after you looking for your file in 5 years now that the host you selected was shut down or restructured.
In response to Ter13
Ter13 wrote:
I'm sorry, but I cannot justify myself paying to add resource content. I'd love to support BYOND, if that wasn't the case.

You are kind of paying to upload anything anywhere. By directing people to content uploaded elsewhere, you are subjecting them to malware, ransomware, malicious ads, and all sorts of unsavory garbage. That's the price of free.

If this were the case, Google would have had to shut down Google Drive a long time ago. I see zero ads when it comes to file sharing using Google Drive, Mega, or Dropbox.

To add insult to injury, so many file hosts have come and gone over the years that it's likely the resources will disappear from the internet in 5 years or less.

BYOND has had stable file hosting since 2005. If it's a software suite that you use frequently, are passionate about, and attempts to compensate you for your support by hosting your contributions to it, IMO $2 a month is a more than reasonable ask.

Except the minimum payment is a one-time fee of $10. Not a 1 year monthly installment plan of $2/month. If that were the case, then I'm sure more people would be BYOND members without much care in the world.

And yeah, nobody is forcing you to become a member to upload free resources. You are free to do that on free file hosting services. The services you are asking why BYOND doesn't work properly with are forcing you to subject the people interested in your product to malicious ads and malware as a trade for serving your traffic (temporarily). BYOND simply isn't in a financial position to offer unlimited file hosting, and asks for a one time donation in order to upload assets permanently over the duration of your membership.

I'm not asking for BYOND to offer free file-hosting. I'm pointing out the contradiction that currently exists with the lack of support for third party file-hosting, and the only option right now being to become a member to use its "convenience factor" that was only a "convenience" when third party file-sharing/hosting actually worked. Now it's more a "requirement." There in lies the contradiction when it comes to uploading new free resource content for the community.

Look at it this way: You are paying either way. At least paying BYOND, you know that the money is going to a service you already support, and nobody's at risk of clicking the wrong download button and taking out their lack of an adblocker on you. Or for that matter, coming after you looking for your file in 5 years now that the host you selected was shut down or restructured.

I've supported BYOND in the past (probably about 8 years ago, anyways), and I'd love to again, but the website having piss-poor search functionality that takes an eternity, and this topic I'm bringing to light (if it hasn't already) makes it quite difficult. I know Lummox is a busy man, but he could bring others on board to help, similar to how Dan and Tom brought him on board back in the day.
I'm not asking for BYOND to offer free file-hosting. I'm pointing out the contradiction that currently exists with the lack of support for third party file-hosting

It doesn't lack support for third party file-hosting. The file hosts you are trying to use are explicitly blocking direct links from outside of their ecosystem.

There are ways to use these services to serve a direct download link:

http://vintaytime.com/direct-download-link-drive-dropbox/

Fair warning, these services regularly start disallowing direct linking by these means, and will more than likely suspend files that link in this manner in the near future.

Mega in particular doesn't like people not using its ecosystem and can't be directly linked to. It's also notorious for purging downloads regularly. Google drive might be your best bet. Dropbox is also pretty notorious for shenanigans.

As for Google Drive not having ads? That's because their software IS the spyware/malware. Read the TOS.
In response to Ter13
That's actually a helpful link. Thank you.

EDIT
After trying to make a Google Drive direct download link, it works when I paste it into the address bar, but when I put it on a hub, it fails. Not sure why, but I think I'm just going to continue just pasting the link right on the hub itself.
This is unrelated but for google drive is more about you getting into their ecosystem so you have an account they can track you across their ad network.

Plus they can upsell you on email and other stuff which they use to tailor their ads to you.

Basically in those cases, you are the product.
In response to Optimumtact
Optimumtact wrote:
This is unrelated but for google drive is more about you getting into their ecosystem so you have an account they can track you across their ad network.

Plus they can upsell you on email and other stuff which they use to tailor their ads to you.

Basically in those cases, you are the product.

Google is amazingly insidious.

If you wanted to sell analytics information about motorists and traffic patterns, you'd have to track nearly every vehicle on the road. This would require a massive computer network to monitor traffic, and software to analyze large-scale patterns, probably satellites, ground-based relay stations, and tons of individual humans to adjust and edit the road network.

If you had access to this information, you could predict traffic trends fossil fuel investors/speculators would be interested in, you could predict foot traffic to businesses and allow them to optimize staffing and stock down to the day/hour. You could sell analytics about traffic collisions and use the information to plan infrastructure upgrades, you could win government contracts with access to this data, you could corner marketplaces, you could predict consumer trends.

Man, wouldn't that kind of control over the financial marketplace be awesome? But who would subsidize such a huge computer network? Who would buy and install every device that monitors the roadways? Who would be responsible for maintenance and repair of that network? Who would supply the grunt processing power to do such a thing? Surely people would object to being spied on at this level!


Surely such a megaproject is impossibly expensive, right?





You are the product, the data, the customer, the investor, the maintenance, and the infrastructure itself.

You subsidized the sale of your own data and are supplying the grunt processing power to make all of this possible.

All so you can throw birds at pigs while taking a shit.
The primary reason why the client doesn't work with those websites is because of the HTTPS protocol. I found this out as I once had working links from Dropbox that originally used the HTTP protocol. It wasn't till they switched that they stopped working properly on the client.

OziBox normally works as they still use the HTTP protocol. Same with BYOND itself.

Edit: Your right. OziBox seems to be down currently.