Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader. • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#11

Post by ogdr » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:41 PM UTC

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #10

Very nice and simple. But that's quite an expensive tld you've got there. That's going to add up over the years. Unless you're using a much cheaper registrar .st domains are about $75/year I think.

Actually, they're not that expensive. The .st TLD is maintained by Bahnhof, a Swedish internet provider ( they are actually pretty cheap. Check out www.nic.st , they cost about 45USD/Year there).

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#12

Post by Skywing » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:51 PM UTC

I don't see any ads anywhere, and this service looks entirely free. It's not cheap to host large files for people en masse, especially since you allow up to 250MB. For example, if this were hosted using Amazon's S3, somebody could literally just upload a lot of 250MB files and directly hit your wallet. How do you plan to keep this service afloat?

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#13

Post by Kudos » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:52 PM UTC

Speaking as the operator of a similarly themed site, allowing drive-by downloads is a huge target for malware uploaders.

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#14

Post by ogdr » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

Kudos wrote: post #13

Speaking as the operator of a similarly themed site, allowing drive-by downloads is a huge target for malware uploaders.

So how do we solve this? By only allowing hotlinks on Images or similar?

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#15

Post by alexkearns » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:54 PM UTC

How do you intend to make money? You could end up with a significant server bill if lots of people start using the service.

Great service, btw!

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#16

Post by Kudos » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:55 PM UTC

Skywing wrote: post #12

I don't see any ads anywhere, and this service looks entirely free. It's not cheap to host large files for people en masse, especially since you allow up to 250MB. For example, if this were hosted using Amazon's S3, somebody could literally just upload a lot of 250MB files and directly hit your wallet. How do you plan to keep this service afloat?

I'll bet they work in the hosting industry and they're just using spare capacity for this.

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#17

Post by james33 » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

Why is this better than using one of the many other services that do the exact same thing? Like, say, http://ge.tt (not affiliated with them, but just a personal favorite).

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#18

Post by Kudos » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

ogdr wrote: post #14

Kudos wrote: post #13

Speaking as the operator of a similarly themed site, allowing drive-by downloads is a huge target for malware uploaders.

So how do we solve this? By only allowing hotlinks on Images or similar?

That's precisely what I do. You probably also want to scan the files for viruses at the time of upload and at regular intervals. I use ClamAV and F-Prot.

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#19

Post by Skywing » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 5:00 PM UTC

Kudos wrote: post #16

Skywing wrote: post #12

I don't see any ads anywhere, and this service looks entirely free. It's not cheap to host large files for people en masse, especially since you allow up to 250MB. For example, if this were hosted using Amazon's S3, somebody could literally just upload a lot of 250MB files and directly hit your wallet. How do you plan to keep this service afloat?

I'll bet they work in the hosting industry and they're just using spare capacity for this.

I guess I just don't understand that logic. I also work in a hosting-focused industry. We host large amounts of files for paying customers in a much less sexy industry, but we still revolve around file hosting. As a result, we have a lot of storage space and at times we have a lot of free storage space. What would be the benefit of letting people upload files to our open storage and then download them, as well, entirely for free? Seems like it'd only really "get your name out there", but with a lot more downsides than that.

Re: Show HN: file.st - File Street: The old-school uploader.

#20

Post by ogdr » Thu, Dec 06, 2012, 5:01 PM UTC

Skywing wrote: post #12

I don't see any ads anywhere, and this service looks entirely free. It's not cheap to host large files for people en masse, especially since you allow up to 250MB. For example, if this were hosted using Amazon's S3, somebody could literally just upload a lot of 250MB files and directly hit your wallet. How do you plan to keep this service afloat?

We have a few other hidden upload limits, and we'll probably use ads later on to solve the financial issues, but right now we're trying to estimate the interrest of the service in general.