This is excellent news, coming straight from the link Shah gave me:
No more captchas – higher flexibility for premium-users
July 02, 2008
By eliminating the captchas we simplified the use of RapidShare’s free services significantly. In addition, free-users can now upload and download bigger files (up to 200 megabyte). Anyhow, to protect RapidShare from congestion caused by automated downloading, we limited the maximum download speed for free-users to 500 kilobit per second. To compensate for that, they do not have to wait anymore until starting a succeeding download.
Premium-users now profit from more flexibility regarding the download volume: It used to be limited to 10 gigabyte per day and can be “saved” now to a maximum of 50 Gigabyte. As a consequence, the volume that was not used is transferred to the following day automatically, up to a maximum of 50 gigabyte. If the complete download capacity is used up during one day, the premium-user is able to save another 10 gigabyte the following day.
(Source)
Enjoy yer leeching mateys for now, yer have no lame captchas. (Ok, sorry for my lame attempt at pirate speech).
This really simplifies downloading off Rapidshare, and I wonder how and if download managers can be used now. Previously, there was competition to see who can crack the RS captchas, now that’s a non-issue.
Oh by the way, the download timer is still there, so you will still have to wait. I’m sure somebody, somewhere will figure out a way to beat that.
Regarding the speed limits and the download limit, I doubt it really affects us Mauritians. Firstly, 500Kbps download speed limit doesn’t matter. Most of us have 128Kbps, or 512Kbps. It’s not that bad. 128Kbps folks will probably be enjoying full speed.
The 10GB limit is plain off-limits to us. I doubt anybody can download 10GBs in Mauritius with our available connections (unless you are an godly haxx0r).
Overall, I find that it’s a good move from Rapidshare to promote its services. But with limits like 10GB per day, or cumulative 50GB, isn’t Rapidshare directly condoning piracy? I don’t think your videos, documents and free music that you may share with others will amount to 10GB daily, will it?
Let’s see your views. 🙂