Bandwidth stealing?

[Paleoanth]

Saw this on insimenator:

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=46757

So I stuck in some names to see what I could find, I realized they are hotlinking to files in the booty.   I have no idea if Pescado would care or not, but I thought I would let you know.  

I used Windkeeper and Birgit43 and saw the hotlinks to here.

[Pescado]

Don't give a shit. Bandwidth exists to be used. It's not like we actually HAVE a webpage to gawk at.

[Smonaff]

Hotlinking actually saves bandwidth for a site. For instance I saw some of my stuff from MTS2 on the MegaMiner site, one in particular is the clothes changer which has a file size of 10.2KB, now if a person downloads it from MegaMiner it only costs MTS2 10.2KB in bandwith, where if they download it from MTS2 then it's 10.2KB for the file + 28.7KB for the page and over 300KB worth of graphics.

[Lilyroseisapirate]

ive never gotten the big deal about hotlinking, its not like anyone can do anything about it.

[BlackPearl]

Hotlinking actually saves bandwidth for a site. For instance I saw some of my stuff from MTS2 on the MegaMiner site, one in particular is the clothes changer which has a file size of 10.2KB, now if a person downloads it from MegaMiner it only costs MTS2 10.2KB in bandwith, where if they download it from MTS2 then it's 10.2KB for the file + 28.7KB for the page and over 300KB worth of graphics.

I didn't know this.  I'm just learning about the whole bandwidth business.  A lot of ppl are pissy about hotlinking because of bandwidth issues.  If they knew it was saving bandwidth, maybe they would quit whining...

[calalily]

Actually you can do something about it.  Switcheroo or htaccess, or both.

[Quinctia]

Hot linking is really only an issue with really gigantic file sizes and/or posting things like pictures inline on huge traffic sites, and then it's for people who have limited bandwidth that it's a real problem.

But yeah, if someone hotlinks a music file of yours to play in the background of their myspace, or posts a picture from your site on a place like SomethingAwful, that might be an issue.

Linking to your mesh directly instead of the graphic intensive page it's on?  Saves you bandwidth, assuming the person will download the file no matter where the link points.

[BlackPearl]

That makes a lot of sense.  Sim~Antics started running out of bandwidth because of heavy traffic (NOT layden with boocoos of graphics and what not) and we had to upgrade the storage/bandwidth.

So, small sites being hotlinked to could cause problem with low bandwidths, big sites usually doesn't touch them.  Saves their bandwidth.  This is what you're saying?  Basically?

[Quinctia]

If you think about it this way: someone is going to download a particular file--no matter what.   They can follow a direct link to the file or go to the page on your site that hosts it.  It costs less bandwidth if they get the file directly than to load up an html page with graphics and flash doodads and whatever and THEN download the file.  All other things equal in this case, the hotlink helps.

So the real problem comes when people are just using your content link in a way that would never happen on your real site, causing more traffic than would ever normally happen.  The size of the site doesn't matter so much, it's just a large site would obviously have a bigger "cushion" in their bandwidth allotment.

Of course, one could argue that someone doing a recolor is adding traffic, but if you allow recolors and don't allow mesh redistribution, that's your own fault!

[Doursim]

The real problem is when you have a site that is hotlinking your images AND your files  I've had a few.  Funny thing really.  It wasn't using up much bandwidth, but it was more insulting than anything, (ask first, k?) at least those sites list the original source.  My question is why anyone would download CC from a site like that, if you can't see it first???

[Paleoanth]

If you think about it this way: someone is going to download a particular file--no matter what.   They can follow a direct link to the file or go to the page on your site that hosts it.  It costs less bandwidth if they get the file directly than to load up an html page with graphics and flash doodads and whatever and THEN download the file.  All other things equal in this case, the hotlink helps.

OK. That makes sense to me.  I can now see the difference between hotlinking images which would be a constant drain on bandwidth and hotlinking to a file which would not be.  Thanks for the clarification.  Now I feel all ignorant and non-1337.