Wide World of Women

Until recently rapidshare provided links to any and all media I could ask for. But after many years of hanging tough they have completely succumbed to copyright laws. Anyone still using RS knows what I mean. Some sites tried safelinking, safelinking combined with captcha and even safelinking, captcha and password combined. Nothing works anymore and RS has been dropped by virtually every site.
There are so many file hosting sites out there now it boggles the mind. Any thoughts or experiences on which are the best. I'm referring to downloading purposes not uploading.

My current short list of best file hosts by far, for downloading as a free user:

180upload
bitshare
filecloud.io
mediafire
megashares
sendspace
zippyshare

All those offer high speeds (typically at least 1 MBps / 8 Kbps, up to your entire bandwidth) and minimum hassle. Minimum hassle implies, among other things, allowing simultaneous downloads for free users or at least no / little wait between downloads, without having to resort to IP / cookies / login hacks.

Some of my worst file hosts for downloading, among those currently particularly popular with uploaders:

extabit
lumfile
netload
rapidgator
ryushare
secureupload.eu
ul.to = uploaded.net

These can be dial-up slow (on a good day), anything but hassle-free and can make you jump through multiple hoops (rapidgator being the worst offender) just to grab a single file.

Worth noting that a new host can go from "MegaUpload great" to "Are you freaking kidding me?" pretty quickly, presumably as its popularity explodes, but the owners don't bother investing in hew hardware and bandwidth. Secureupload.eu (launched last July and awesome for about 2 months) and netload are good examples. Somehow they never seem to go the other way...

Also, the new Me.ga is scheduled to launch Jan. 20th... could be a game-changer again... we'll have to wait and see.

I ended up going with Netload premium at least for now. I had gotten too spoiled with RS premium downloading at 1GB in under 10 minutes and netload is at least that fast. There is a world of difference between free vs premium downloading at most file hosting sites. But the deciding factor was what file hoster was the most common to the sites I visit and that was netload. Combined with IDM I'm back in business so to speak. The expense is worth it to me for what I get in return.

Netload is actually the worst for free downloaders I find. It's so slow to the point where it isn't even downloadable. Last time I had tried downloading anything with netload it was like 7kbps.

You are absolutely right thatguy. Netload is basically letting you know that they don't want free users. I've tried hosting sites for free that tell me the file I want is for premium users only no matter how small the file size is. And they say that for every file I try. They are in it to make money. Although there are sites like mediafire that are good for free users they don't host anything I want. I guess it depends on what one is looking for.