File sharing services

[Kendo]

I want to move web media (images and video) to a file sharing service that is cloud based with data centres worldwide to provide faster downloads from the user's location.

I have looked at DropBox which can do the job except that they cannot prevent direct downloads unless the file is locked which makes it useless for web page media. I have also looked at Amazon S3 and apparently they can check if the media was requested from my website.. I think.

Ideally I will be able to upload from a webform on my site and by using an ApiKey be able to upload to their data centre. I also need to be able to create a new folder for each user.

Does anyone have experience in this field to recommend the best solution?

[graeme_p]

I do not know whether S3 will check referrers, but it will let you generate signed links on your site.

However, I do not think S3 alone will give you downloads from closer to your location. You would need to use Cloudfront as well or instead of S3.

I am pretty sure other CDNs will do the same.

deally I will be able to upload from a webform on my site and by using an ApiKey be able to upload to their data centre. I also need to be able to create a new folder for each user.

I have done that bit with S3, and it needs integration.

Again, I think a CDN with hotlink protection will be easier, if that does what you need.

A file sharing service is not meant of web media, so I would forget about them. I am not quite sure what you mean by "Locked" - I have read a lot of stuff on private links through drop box and similar.

A lot depends on what your biggest problem is too - latency, speed, server load?

[thecoalman]

It's not an easy solution because of initial setup but by default Cloudflare will cache common static files like images, .mp4 etc .You only need to upload to origin and the edge cache will only make requests based on origin page headers or custom settings. With a custom rule you can block requests for resources in specific directory with no referrer.to your domain.

[thecoalman]

Just wanted to add checking the referrer provides minimal security for protecting the download, it's along the lines of disabling right click to protect images. It only stops or slows down average users.It might be marginally better because they wouldn't know what to search for.

I just did a quick check in Cloudflare panel and you can create rules based on cookies which would isolate access more.

[Kendo]

We finally completed the setup to be able to upload from my website to an S3 bucket but it is complex. First up, it is not possible to upload to an S3 from outside of AWS so we needed an EC2 instance. We also needed a GitHub account to host needed intermediary resources. Setting up SSL for the EC2 was also required. There are many third party services offering some routes for free, but we opted to avoid third party services. I mean why use third party services who are logging your every move when you are trying to setup a secure file hosting service?

We are finally up and running and usage costs are almost negligent. File location protection does work... if anyone gets the file's location from view source, they cannot download directly.