ImageShack has just launched a new service that lets people download torrents to their servers. After the download has completed you then get a http link to download the file to your home PC. I have tried this service out and it works fantastically. The one issue it seems to be having is that even though the torrent is downloading fine it reports that it is stopped. I suppose this is to be expected for beta software.

While other services like this have existed in the past this is the first I have come across that is completely free. The only restriction is that you are only allowed to download a maximum of 15GB a month to your computer and have 15GB of space on ImageShack’s servers.

ImageShack also provides some basic details about the progress of the downloads. Under the “status” link they list information about the download progress, connected seeds and leechers, share ratio and more.

A more serious point of critique is that the torrent seems to disconnect as soon as the download has finished. This basically means that you will be sharing less than you should. I hope that ImageShack will add a sharing friendly feature, and will at least continue seeding until the share ratio is 100%.

Overall, it’s a good service if you want to be a little more anonymous when filesharing. Undoubtedly ImageShack keeps track of your IP but it will prevent the RIAA/MPAA from seeing you in a bittorrent swarm.

Check out ImageShacks Torrent Service.