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ABANDONIA NOT "cURL" FRIENDLY

I recently discovered that "Abandonia" no longer allows segmented, session-to-session downloads, at least as far as "cURL" (my preferred download manager) is concerned. In the past, I was able to copy the download link location, paste it into the "cURL" command-line, and download for a pre-determined
interval, preserving each segment session-to-session. No longer! Now the "Abandonia" server tells me that I must "revalidate" for each session, and byte-range downloads are not supported. It is now "download all or nothing".

This new policy effectively "shuts the door" on me, and other dial-up users, who lack the download speed necessary for large downloads. Please bring back the "old way" of doing things and make it again possible for dial-up users to take downloads in smaller "chunks". Making "Abandonia" "cURL-friendly" could also further encourage the open-source-software community.

By the way, I discovered "cURL" when I began using Mandriva Linux. A Windows version is also available.

Encourage the open-source-software community? :huh:

Quote:

Originally Posted by methuselah (Post 372664)

I believe Studentis have started patching up security problems among other things. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're effectively saying is that the download URL becomes invalid after a while, right? I believe this was done to avoid other sites from directly linking to our downloads and stealing our bandwidth. If a link does not change, this is easy to do.

Mmmbut . :mhh: I used to have a download manager that did something similar. You could pause downloads and resume them later. Speed optimiser, it was called. I got rid of it because i have broadband at work and didn't need it, and it kept opening when i didn't want it to. But i'm sure you can toggle that in options. :)

As far as I understand, the download system was changed in recent weeks - exactly for the reason of stopping bandwidth thief sites.

Thanks for notifying us of the problem.

You can add new URLs in your download manager.

unless this has been fixed in the last few days, then adding a new link to download manager does not work. downloads have been labelled as non-resumable by my download manager. tried entering a new url after having some downloads stop, and it did not work. had to start dowload over again.

To further explain the merits of "cURL"; it not only allows downloads to be resumed (if supported by the server), but also allows session-to-session resumption of downloads, that is, one segment one day, another segment another day, etc. Most GUI download managers (I have one installed), do not allow session-to-session downloading.

Changes at "Abandonia" have thwarted the usage of "cURL". As far as I could see, the former way of doing things at "Abandonia" was adequate to stop bandwidth thieves. A string in the download link changed every time the download page was accessed, making it necessary to paste the changed download link into the "cURL" command-line every session. But "cURL" still worked -- download resumption was possible.

Now, "cURL" is useless. As with other GUI download managers, it is "download all or nothing." I think the "new way" of doing things at "Abandonia" is a definite regression.

And as far as broadband being "cheap", dial-up is even cheaper. How about 99 USD per year. What a deal! And I do not think it is smart marketing to try to force people to buy broadband access to make full use of a website.

Quote:

Originally Posted by methuselah (Post 372889)

I don't think it's smart to use dial-up in this day and age, but maybe that's just me.

Unless you tell me good reasons why should we make a concession and not you, I'll treat this as a joke.

Since dial-up users are so limited they:

-Block ads and never view them
-Never click on ads because it takes too much to load
-Rarely visit forums and usually don't contribute to the site

First: we're trying to survive, not to do marketing schemes. We're only promoting AB for the community and the old games.

Second: There are guys who make money using our bandwidth, and basically you want us to let them stealing from you and from AB, just so that you have a session-to-session download.