Let us first apologize for not updating the blog for some time, there were several reasons for this. The main reason is of course that we were very busy with implementing the cool new features to the General World. You'll read below about them. We are also actively searching for the volunteers who wish to help us develop the projects, as the volume of work that has to be done is growing like a snow ball. And of course the very file sharing niche is rapidly changing and we have to follow.

In January the FBI cracked down on the Megaupload, one of the leading file hosting services, and it could not go unnoticed by all the other players. It was found that the Megaupload hosted large number of illegal materials and the consequences were severe for them. Many other file hosting websites, including the biggest ones, immediately started to tighten the screws on the suspicious content. A huge number of files was cleaned up or made inaccessible after these measures. The biggest disappointment was of course the Filesonic.com, which practically died as a file hosting service when they indiscriminately closed the access to all hosted content. We had to remove the Filesonic files from our index of course and that's a real loss. We also excluded the files of the several smaller services: Ugotfile.com, Enterupload.com, x7.to, Piggyshare.com. The two big ones, the Letitbit.net and the Uploaded.to made serious changes and closed the downloads for the US users as well. We'll probably make a special notice for this on the website.

Because of all of this, we are very concerned with the total re-check of the availability of all files on General Files, as we noticed that even the file hosting services which did not officially close anything, deleted a huge number of files nevertheless and we must find out what is still alive and what's not as soon as possible. However, we believe there is a possibility that a good share of the deleted files will be available again soon. That's why we can't just completely delete every inaccessible entry from our database.

As for the improvements in the General World, we tried to make the login process even more logical and simple. We reworked the registration system and added a few things, like a welcome screen and an option to send yourself a copy email. We are also working on the filling of the FAQ section, where we try to collect all the questions that you asked to our support. Your feedback is very important as this is how we know what we need to add or rework. Like e.g. the G-point system which we complement with more options for earning and spending and at the same time try to make as clear and simple as possible.

We are very happy to see your great interest in our latest promo with free premium codes for the file hosting services. As we promised, we continue this promotion. We are negotiating with more file hosting companies and we believe we will add them in the nearest future. Unfortunately, we detected the abuse of our G-points system which we need to fix beforehand. The G-points will no longer be "paid" for the actions that are of no use for the users and us.

Thank you everyone for your reaction to our previous blog posting, we'll definitely contact you when it is time. Now one of our primary concerns is the moderation and the addition of the new content. As you can see it's hard to allot time even for the blog posting :)

Anyway, we are developing fast and the General Community helps a lot. Recently we got requests for a specific feature of saving the selected search settings, and now it's ready for use. You don't need to select checkboxes of the needed file hosting services for your every search, as now it can be done in one click. It's a handy feature for every advanced user. The General Community itself is developing as well. We added a possibility to create a topic with the vote. It will make your opinion more structured and influencing and allow us to better understand the direction where we should move.

We recently made the experimental new variant of the download page (detailed file information page). After short live tests, we took it off again to make a number of improvements and now the new version is set as default. The old version is still available, you can choose between the two in your profile. Please visit the vote and discussion at the General Community and let us know what you think. We will continue to polish it further according to your preferences. We are actively modifying the private messaging system. Soon you'll see the new interface which will make communication simple as usual.

We recently released the next version of the General Downloader and we'll try to update it more often in the future because this project is really helpful for our users.

And finally we added the settings for sending the notifications. Now you can choose how do you want to receive (or not) the messages on various events. As always, send us your opinions and suggestions. Be an active part of the General World!