How to overcome download time limit

Some file storage sites give you a download link which use to expire after a definite time , like 1 hour or 24 hour. MiHD.net is one like them. They allow you to download files hosted on their server without any limitations, but the download link will be functional for 6 hours or other certain time. Not only these file hosting servers, often many sites from where you can download movie or songs, impose this kind of time limitation to balancing load.

But surely you can overcome this limitation.

When you download something from internet you get two links, one for the content you are going to download which we will call ‘URL’ or ‘download link’ and the other one is the ‘referrer link’ which is often the origin of requesting the file. Now for a definite page on a definite site, the referrer link is always same, but the download link changes based the download method the site uses.

To overcome the download limit, you have to use any download manager. A good choice would be Free Download Manager or Flashget. Both of them are free, easy to use and full of features.

First browse to the page from where you wish to download a file which is imposed a download time limitation. start downloading the file as you do in all cases. Now when the time is about exceed its limit, then browse the page once again. Save the URL of the page, it is your referrer link. Now click on the file link or start download icon or what ever you get in your case. When the download start, save the download link. If you have installed Free download manager or Flashget and their integration is enabled in your browser, a ADD URL dialoag box will open. from thet box just save the URL or download link.

Now back to the old download link again. If you are downloading the file, pause it. open the download item’s properties, you will get a dialogue box. Replace both the later saved URL and download link with the existing one. Click OK and resume download again.

I am using this trick successfully with flashget and free download manager. But I think, this method will work for all download managers and those sites allow downloading using download manager.

The reason behind the success of this trick is nothing but download managers normally work in append mode. When they download something, they search for a pre-existing complete / incomplete file. If the previous [assuming the file already exists and incomplete] and current file’s referrer links are the same, they assume them as same file and instead of opening a new file, they just start downloading from the last of the previous file and append the download content to the previous file.

Thanks to Rakib, my extra-ordinary genious classmate, who first brought this issue to my mind.