Hello there everyone,
As you may or may not know, we host every single file on this website, on our own servers. For every software listing, there is a direct download link to our proprietary load-balancing file delivery service. This is not as easy of a system to maintain as it may sound. Why? Well, when thousands of users start downloading these large and dense files, we need to add more servers and compute power to handle the extraordinary amount of bandwidth. Therefore, we are paying quite the bill on a monthly basis to keep this service available for free, to all of you.
Listen: we hate to give any third party free file sharing links, because they can easily go down in a moment’s notice. Although they are free, we don’t use them. Why? After six months or so, all free download links (typically) go offline. Such is the case with torrents, which also can be unreliable (as seeders may not be actively seeding torrents). Moreover, we also make sure that before providing you with these public download links, we test the software before uploading it to our backend servers. Just so you won’t face any problems that may arise.
That, my friends, is why we decided to take the hit on our own hardware. Just to make sure all of you can download our software free of charge, 24/7, with no dead links. However, with the constantly growing file sizes of software packages these days, this is getting harder and harder for us to maintain each day.
So now, we call to you for your support. It will help us to pay the monthly bill to operate our equipment. You can pay as little as 3 dollar. Every penny counts. Please feel free to give what you want, and show your love to the open-source community.