One of the biggest limitation with videos hosted on one-click file-sharing websites like Rapidshare, Megaupload and Hotfile has been that you are not able to watch the video until all volumes of a split-archive gets downloaded, but we now have a solution to this in form of free Windows utility ilivid player which allows users to watch the video while it’s downloading to their computer.

ilivid Player knows it's job well and works with all types of rar archives including multi-volume files with password protection, the utility fully supports Rapidshare (Free and Premium), Megaupload and Hotfile services and also comes with an optional toolbar which automatically grabs all video links from a web-page, starting playing the video just seconds after download of the very first link begins.

There are quite a few decent automated downloaders supporting simultaneous downloads from various file-sharing services like RDesc and Tucan, but all new Java based multi-platform FreeRapid Downloader would be one of the best multi-service downloader we have ever came across, supporting fully automated downloads from 87 file-sharing services like Rapidshare, Megaupload, Mediafire and Hotfile to name a few.

The utility supports plugin based architecture allowing easy expansion of supported file-hosters and comes equipped with features like support for proxy lists, download history, smart clipboard monitoring, simple CAPTCHA recognition, automated plugin updates, multi-language support and interface skins.

File-sharing service Megaupload imposes a 45 second wait-timer for free users but here is a simple hack to download files from megaupload instantly without waiting, the hack is pretty simple and you just need to install and click the bookmarklet provided at the end of the post to skip the wait-timer and auto-start the download.

After entering the CAPTCHA image-code and clicking the download file button, you can simply navigate to View -> Page Style -> No style in Firefox and the Regular download button will get visible instantly, to automate the whole process and auto-start downloading I have created a handy bookmarklet, simply right-click the bookmarklet provided at the end of the post and bookmark it, now after entering the CAPTCHA code click the bookmarklet and your download will start immediately.

There are numerous automated download managers for Windows supporting major file-hosters like Rapidshare, Megaupload and Mediafire, but if you are looking for something which gets the job done on other platforms like Linux, open-source utility "Tucan Manager" would be the answer, developed in Phython the cross-platform utility lets users upload and download files on Rapidshare, Megaupload, Gigasize and Mediafire supporting both free and premium account functionality.

The fast and simple to use utility supports plugins making it easily extensible with other services, the application is in ALPHA stages and definitely posses a lot of potential considering its open-source multi-platform nature.

Despite being the third most popular one-click file-hoster after Rapidshare and MediaFire Megaupload does not have many file-search engines meant to search files hosted on their network, compared to the vast amount of dedicated third-party Rapidshare Search Engines there exist only a few meant for Megaupload, most of these file search-engines work on similar scripts which scrap results from specially crafted Google search queries, We can use the same Google search queries directly as discussed earlier to search files on Mediafire changing the query from site:mediafire.com to site:megaupload.com gets the job done, if you are looking for something automating this process here is a list of some of the best free megaupload search engines.

RapidSpread is another free file mirror service similar to Uploadjockey but supporting even more file-mirrors, while Uploadjockey supports Rapidshare, Badongo, Easy-share, Zshare, Megaupload and Depositfiles, RapidSpread also supports Uploaded.to,Mediafire, Zippyshare, Sendspace, FileFactory and Imageshack.

RSFind is a handy Firefox extension to grab file-sharing links like Rapidshare and Megaupload from a webpage, RSFind lets you scan a webpage for links and then let you manage (open, copy etc.) some or all of them altogether.