File hosting

Popular file hosting services like Rapidshare doesn’t offer direct links to the hosted on their servers. That is the user need to visit a file hosting vendor’s  web page to download the embedded links. This is pretty difficult for the user to navigate to a separate page for downloads. Another problem associated with these file hosting services are that they cannot host JavaScript and other script files that are to be executed during page load of a website. So here is set of free file hosting services that allow hotlinking for all known formats, including JavaScript.

Free file hosting services allow direct linking or hotlinking :

We earlier shared a few online backup and storage websites. Some of them like Dropbox, Windows SkyDrive, etc. allow direct linking for public files.

Fileden: Filden offers free file hosting and direct linking for almost all popular file formats. Fileden is a kind of file sharing, hosting and social networking website. Each free account holder will get a personalized profile where they can access the hosted files, along with  direct linking codes for download. Used space and bandwidth information are also given on the profile area.

Features of Filden free plan:

1 GB of storage and a monthly bandwidth of 5GB.
Direct linking is allowed in free accounts and pro accounts.
Maximum file size is limited to 50MB for free accounts.
Support for hosting JavaScript files.
Maximum download limit of 100 KB/sec .

Fileave: Fileave is another free service that allows hotlinking for hosted files. With Fileave, you will get 50 MB of hosting, 1GB of bandwidth and a  personalized profile page to manage  uploads.

Hotlinkfiles: Hotlinkfiles is the best website offering free file hosting services with direct linking. They offer 1GB of storage space and 8GB of monthly bandwidth. Size of files on free accounts is limited 50 MB. Similar to Fileden and Fileave, they provide private folders where you can access your files and direct linking codes.

These file hosting websites can be used to host .MP3, .JS, FLV, and get direct URL links to them. Therefore, we can use these files in online music player widgets, web apps, and streaming services. An example for the use of these direct links is in our post on JavaScript based music player widget for  Blogger and WordPress. Bloggers can save their web hosting bandwidth by uploading files to these services and by providing hotlinks on their articles.