Might i suggest some kind of leech protection? Like before u download theres an image with text on top of it and u have to type the text.

Just an idea, ill keep spitting em out.

I don't like it. It's never worked for me on HotU.

i browse hotu daily and it works fine for me...
maybe u need thicker glasses to read the text? LOL jk

no but sreiously, theres lots of ppl out there who will readily leech without any guilt. As this site grows, it will be nessesary to prevent a lot of bs...

Well if it is decided, then you better make it so it will work for me.

well these are just ideas...

kosta or whoever can see what i have to say and pick and choose the ones to use, or not use any at all (though they are good ideas).

We are closely looking into protection methods for abandonia and the site is continually being upgraded.

Ok...we will see in the future

the letter stuff sucks :not_ok:

Make it protected so that only sign in users can download. In that case, you can't access the folder on the server without being loged in here, and nobody can leach.

Just an idea. :)

That would be the ultimate protection, but even then it could easily be cheated upon. Now link stealers will only need to create an account here and make their links go thru it.

Alot of members come here because they like the site or to ask for help on this or that game they downloaded here. Forcing them to register on a forum they're not sure they'll visit... it'll boost stats of users here, but is easily seen through by looking at posts. Along with that, it might kill leeching, but it'll kill regular downloading too. I know registering at some site just to download a game's usually a big no when I'm looking for something.

I agree.
Besides I don't think there's really anything anyone can do.
It's an endles circle - you think of a way to protect - someone thinks of a way to brake your protection - you think of a better way - so do they...
I guess well just have to be on the lookout for any sites that leech from us and report...

I was going to say the same thing.

If a site tells me I need to login to download - unless its a good site - I don't bother and I go somewhere else to get the game. I don't mind the letters as much but I still find them irritating (because I often use the computer before I've put my contact lenses in and I can't focus on them!)

I think we all should all be on the lookout and if it is obvious that another site is leeching we need to report it. Hopefully the situation won't get so serious that we have to resort to passwords or numbers.

I came across one site once that corrupted the download if you didn't click on two of its sponsor ads before doing the numbers thing. This meant you could wait half an hour for a download only to find it didn't work. Bloody awful way of stopping leeching and a bad way of making money from a site but it works!!!!

Rule number one is to not end up like the Underdogs, their leeching protection is way to strong, to download anything from their site I have to turn off my firewall and do all sorts of other irrating (and in some cases dangerous) things. As for registering, that could be easily bypassed and it would kill our good stats for visits (21,000 visitors per day but only 700 forum accounts) and would be extremly irritating.

stupid question, but what is leeching?

That and, i like the idea of the letter trick. Always helps to make people wanting to do harm to a site jump through more hoops to do it. Then when they trip, we may point and laugh at them LOL

I agree with idea to put some leech protection!

That thing about downloading only for members - I completely dissagree!!! On that way none will register to the site, and we will never arive at 800 members, so there wont be MEGA UPDATE! :cry:

Leeching would be if someone started an old games site (especially a pay one) and when you clicked on one of their download links it lead to another sites download links so the leecher would get all of the credit/money but the person whose site was being leeched from would be paying for the bandwidth etc.

Are you sure??? I thought leeching is placeing somekind of protection, like an image with letters, so that you need manualy write them when you want to download something, cuz computer programs can't read from images!

oke, thx for the info

No, that's leech protection, the idea of those is to stop directly linking to the downloads (you need to go through that check before you can download anything.

Thats what i mean. If someone makes a link to one of abandonia's downloads, or theres bots searching the web for a certain file, i just think we should get serious about it...

Well, I see this discussion went on for two pages, and without much of a reason. Why? Well, try and leech a file from abandonia and you'll see ;)

What will happen?
You already have somekind of protection?

You get beat up by the 800 or so members of abandonia :Titan: .

O_o kosta has a secret plan . someone test it on their website :D

Uhh..

Can someone explail me how that works??? :blink:

I'm with him, just let someone try and leech and they'll see Abandonians in motion... :Titan: :rifle: :Titan: :ranting:

yeap. and then theres the people we could all rally to our cause... My sister would be good at attacking people..

Give them all to me..

I will :sniper: them

Hey, I guess we could up the ante a bit.... whoever manages to leech a game download from abandonia (for longer than an hour) gets the admin status :)

What's exactly leaching a game>???? (i wanna try.._)

They put a game on their site and a link to download it on Abandonia instead on their site, so not their bandwidth is used, but the one from Abandonia. That's leeching. ;)

I don't have a website :wall:

EDIT: I started a free website and I'm trying to leech a file, if you see my I.P. popping up on the list of people snoopin garound the FTP folders, please don't hate me :D

ONGOING STORY: I see that the location that the site's download links lead to do not show up in the corner of the web browser and all of the game downloads lead to www.abandonia.com/download.php very clever :ok:

Now lets attack and mame Havell for trying. :bleh:
Just kidding. LOL

I'm interested in giving it a try on one of the couple free sites I have. (BTW, they all have links to here)

Would I be banned/kicked/hated/mutilated/disowned/killed for trying?
I really want to be admin!

Its an open competition. Give it all you've got :ok:

yeah nice one. Got the file to download though. isn't that difficult without a browser you know :)

I'll msn you how to do it kosta :)

Well, that was rather quick! Data is the winner, the prize is given. The rest of you might do it for fun though :ok:

So we got a new ADmin now???

Apparently so ;)
But Data was a kind of an Admin before, now he just got the official badge :)

ARGGHHHH!!!! Everywhere I look I'm not getting good stuff cause I'm being good!
Games that been put up I didn't upload cause I thought they weren't good enough for the site! Thats it! NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY! I'm asking to upload every game I've got and you will all just have to deal with it! :evil: No more, " Well that's probably not worthy enough so I'm not gonna ask about it! "
I'm asking about every game I've got! :evil:
That's it! I'm telling Kosta how I can leech, cause I know a real easy way to do it! :evil: MU HA HA HA HA HA HA HA I know how to leech! :evil:
But if I say how to Kosta what happens. I don't get banned do I? :blink:
Cause I haven't actually leached from the site or anything even if this is a competition. Mostly cause of my fear of being banned.
Oh, and congratulations, Data. :ok: Now where was I. :whistle: Oh, yes. :sneaky: I'm not gonna stand for this! *gripe* *grumble* *gripe* Grumble*. :ranting: Personally I thought Data deserved the promotion. Three other candidates in my opinion would be Unknown Hero, wormpaul, and Sebastianos.
And me. LOL But I wouldn't really leach from the site. I know how I could, but I wouldn't really. :D

wow, I ask one day, and find out the next that I lost before I could try....didn't realize I was that slow, LOL, well, time to find another route to being a well known member...

Thanks for the vote of confidence. :cheers:
But I think there shouldn't be too many :adminpower: :bleh:

Thx for the confidence...

But i`m just a newbie at the site ..(same as Sebastianos...) so way too early to became a Admin... :angel:

The only reason I didn't say how I could leech was cause I thought Kosta was joking bout the adminship.

Is Kosta ever Joking??? :blink: :blink:

I didn't think he'd just give out an adminship. It seemed like kinda an extreme prize. But I won't doubt him again. :blink:

LOok at Data...

He is now our new admin....but maybe he would that been also when he didnt win...Kosta has lot of faith in our DosBox Master :ok:

Yep. He does. He deserved the promotion. Congrats again! :ok:

Not when it comes to this site :max:

Um, yep. I wouldn't make a good Admin anyway. :bleh: :whistle:

We shall keep that in mind :bleh:

Oh, no. Please don't.

Thank you for your kind words.

:w00t:


My pixel!!!

I take it you like it, Data :ok:

You made the one for data??

Yes.

The original is in my Art section in the forum.

Sorry but I haven't read the entire thread.

One system that I think is effective is a one time hash based download key. When you click on the download link, you load up a php page that generates a one time key that maps to a certain file. This then redirects to another php page that maps the key to a file name and creates a binary stream and serves the file's contents. This is something I have been considering writing for my own website. If you aren't in a hurry, I could easily offer you my scripts when they are done.

This is the system I use. But as you see, its not foolproof :)

Do you do a referal check?

Or a greylisting implentation... just throwing around ideas now.

Never understood the reason for leeching in the first place. It's not like Abandonia is going anywhere! Why not just fetch the games when you need them?

I don't think it's wise for kosta to reveal all details so maybe you 2 can continue this conversation privately. The reason for leeching... well abandonia is very accessible so there is little reason, but it has happened that so called abandonware sites offered games to their members (and you had to pay for the membership) that were actually downloaded from another site. (so that other site had to pay for the bandwidth)

Hehe, good point Data! Even worse, I might reveal the secret combo to my luggage. Know one should know that the secret combination is 1-2-3-4-5.

;)