Downloading files from BitRoad.net without installing plugins

11 06 2008

BitRoad.net is a decent file hosting services that promises that they "don't have speed limits,
the size and a storage time of files
". This might sound suspicious, but I've been using them and their sister sites for well over a year now, and am pretty satisfied, especially with the speed of their servers. The main drawback: they require you to download a plugin before downloading that's detected as malware.


When downloading via IE, the software they want you to install is called "ADSTechnology" and "FireBit" when using Firefox. I have actually installed ADSTechnology before and it seemed harmless, but the malware warnings from my AV were discouraging enough that I removed it. Also, the software doesn't appear to have any impact on downloading at all.


Now to the good stuff: how to bypass the plugin. I'll give the Firefox case since it subsumes the IE case (plus Firefox is better anyways ;-) ).

  1. Install the User Agent Switcher addon for Firefox and restart the browser
  2. Go to Tools -> User Agent Switcher -> Internet Explorer 7 (Windows Vista)
  3. Browse to the file in BitRoad.net that you want to download. You'll be shown a small box mentioning ADSTechnology.
  4. Right-click and view the page source
  5. Ctrl+F in the source code window and search for "check_install"
    1. You'll see something that looks like this:
    onsubmit="check_install('http://b7.bitroad.net/download5/3f0605518729_k0adf32ybm046/filename.ext')">
  6. Copy the URL in the single quotes and enter it in the address bar. The download should now begin.


In IE, just follow steps 3 onwards.