I just tried to access this site and this is what I'm getting. "Error 404 If you are looking for 3D Model World it has been closed for good due to misuse by people stealing images and files as well as persons using programs such as Download Accelerator, Web Stripper and the likes.... Greedy unthinking people has forced to shut the doors of 3D Model World till such a time as we can combat such greed. If you do not use such programs and do not take images without asking then please accept our apologies. We spend thousands of dollars every month to bring these free sites to you, since 3D Model World has become a site of uncaring and thoughtless abusers we have closed the site down, again if you do not use site abusive software or take images and content without asking then we offer our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience you may be having." Another good site gone because of abuse. What a shame!

SHIT! :-((

Now I may be daft, but what is so terrible with those download managers? I have GetRight, and usually it is what handles my downloads. In some rare cases it doesn't work, so the "regular" IE Download thingie takes over. Is it somethig the Download Managers do that is bad or is it the fact that you can download more than 2 (3?) things at a time? Apart from that, it's a bleedin shame that the site had to shut down. I haven't been there for a while, but it was a great site.

Well, Getright is the only download manager allowed at Poser World so I expect it's ok. When I used Download Accelerator-- only for CL's Poser 5 downloads because my dsl timed out every time-- it sucked up every open channel [ up to 15!! I think] and held onto the download-- refused to be timed out. It was a vicious little puppy but was the only thing I could find that let me get the fix to use Poser 5. I had to deinstall it to download at any other site. I can imagine it used a ton of bandwidth to accomplish it's task. And, I suppose you could have just added and added to what was downloading because you couldn't shake it off, it was like a tick. I never did use it that way. The one or two times I downloaded at commercial sites with it, I limited the download channels to 2. You can't limit it to one, or turn it off as downloader of choice, so I had to deinstall. Emily

The problem with the download managers is that people use them to suck a copy of EVERYTHING off a site - devouring bandwidth by the gigabyte and blocking access by others. Since sites have to pay for the bandwidth used, it can start to cost really BIG $$$ if a bunch of greedy assholes are sucking everything out of a site like that.

This is really too bad, but I can see why he had to do it. :( A big "Thank you" to Lannie for running such a great site for years. I am very, very sorry to see the abusers put it out of business.

Well, I wondered what had happened. I tried to go there a couple of days ago and I just got a "site not found" message. It's one of my favorite sites because she has such nice stuff there. I just hate it when people get greedy like that. What a shame. Melanie

That SUCKS! That was a great site. This is as bad as when Traveler closed his site because people were using his morphs in commercial products. Another great resource gone.:(

sad news, that was one of the first 3d sites I found when I was just a fledgling. I can understand though, there are so many leachers on the internet, most don't give a dam. But it is worth it for those that do.

It is a shame. Bandwidth theft is a huge problem. And the download accelerators can be abused. I once used Gozilla to manage downloads and I know it would search for multiple locations. That was back in the "bad old days" of 14.4 modems on a dialup, time limited connection!!. I dumped it when I moved up to a 28.8 :) What gets me is that some of these boneheads probably throw away most of what they download....just greedy schiesters....that's all they are. Lannie's site was always one of my favorite sites as well....especially pre-poser when I was hunting for props I could use in Vue/Bryce. Hopefully she'll come back.

It's kind of sad because I'm seeing more and more sites leaving like this because of this very reason. Even when they have a statement on the site that asks people not to use those download programs, people still ignore that and do it anyway. They're probably thinking they're the only one getting in there doing it, so it won't matter. Such ignorance. And it punishes those of us who don't use the programs. We're losing more and more resources because of this. Melanie

I don't think it's ignorance. It's indifference. They want what they want and they really don't care what problems they cause for other people. It's very sad. This was a wonderful site. I wish there were better ways to protect sites from these abusive people.

I think a lot of people simply don't KNOW that download managers can cause problems. I guess it falls in the category of Ignorance :o) Well, I refuse to feel guilty. Only download manager I use is GetRight and it didn't work on 3DModelWorld anyway due to the javascriptbuttonsystem - similar to the one used here. There are still plenty of free hosts out there and free hosts with no bandwidth max too. I hope 3DModelWorld will be back up soon :o) It was a great site. And where are Lyne's wonderfull morphs now? I miss'em.

I wasn't referring to someone like you, who I am sure uses common sense when utilizing the download manager, but I am talking about people who do mass downloadings for no good reason than sucking everything off of a website. I've seen people who offer tutorials have to close their sites too for similar reasons. I think some of it is ignorance, but there is an element of the malicious in regards to people who go to every website they can find and take every they can from it. Further, some of these people turn around and distribute what they take and don't give credit to the original source. I don't know what the solution is. I know a lot of sites have set up passwords so at least the downloading isn't an automatic affair but I don't know how well that works.

I know, Dialyn :o) And I guess I just don't quite understand this whole bandwidth issue, as I have no bandwidth max on my FREE Poser site (at least that's what the host claims L) Also I have seen webhostings here with 100Mb space and no limit for approx 3$ a month so I have a hard time understanding all this "we're using 1000 of $$$ to keep this site alive. All I can say is: "In that case: Get another host!" But perhaps I'm just lucky to live somewhere where it's relatively cheap?

Bandwidth is a confusing thing. I still don't understand it totally. It seems that even visitors to the site can draw on bandwidth. I have three websites all hosted by the same company....no ads.....free hosting and 20 or 30 mb of free space. You have to purchase a domain through them and leave your site there for a year. There's an annual set up fee of $30 whether your have one or 30 sites. You can purchase additional space for a fee. The three sites cost me about $200 a year. Two of the sites get lite useage, but the one I've created for our town does get enough hits where I occuassionally get billed for extra space. I basically hate banner ads, so I won't use Geocities, etc. anymore. I do know that Geocities sets a limit on downloads for the month. That's why some of the popular stuff in free stuff can frequently not be accessed for a period of time. Lannie had a lot of advertising on her site....I suspect to help cover the cost...but it can be a "double edge sword"....the more people you attract through ads, the more problems you will have. Ernyoka, I think you must have a good deal as the banner ad on your site is very, very small and barely discernable. It may be that the rules vary from country to country? Is Lannie US based? Seems like the US based free sites are a fright with their stupid banner ads.....and with no regulation, sites can charge whatever they want and whatever their market base will accept. So it's difficult to find a site that is reasonably priced and accessible to customers. A lot of sites that once housed tons of free PsP Tubes are gone for the same reason....bandwidth theft.

Websites are like cellphones ... the owner of the site pays for the 'airtime'. So if you have a popular site it gets expensive. All those people who make great freestuff items? it ain't free to them. I had to close my site temporarily a few years back because of a $1000 bandwidth bill. Getright is the nicest of the download managers, as it can be set to DL one thing at a time. I use it myself to rack up large amounts of DL's and run it while I'm out. Other programs are designed to suck down entire sites as fast as possible, and this can lock up channels and cause massive bandwidth surges. Also, some people have created sites and link directly to other peoples zip files and/or graphics, adding to bandwidth issues.

Although there are some who use mass downloaders I think the majority of bandwidth problems are simply caused by the huge number of people who get the files (legitimately). And how can people who grab all the files be faulted? Because these sites go down right and left most people feel they have to grab what they want NOW because they may be gone tomorrow. Catch 22.

have to agree with that last..I've only been here a year, and I think I've had about 250 sites so far that joined 'club 404'..;) A lot of these folks move, but the hosters don't forward you always. Still, you just have to strike a balance..

I've been running sites since 1996, and I've never had a problem with bandwidth, or high bill due to excessive bandwidth. Whenever I put up a freestuff item these days, I can count on at least 2GB of downloads within 48 hours; which is why I never even CONSIDER hosting that charges for bandwidth. Why? there are good deals, and decent host'ers with NO limits, for the same prices as people pay for the bandwidth limited accounts. I just don't get it.

Ok RealDeal....so who hosts you? :) You site is free of pops and has no ads, and it loads fast...this is good! Are you hosted by a free site?? What do you pay per year? Seriously curious......in fact it might be a good forum question to find out who some of the best hosts are.

Well........ I cheat for my personal site. However, I set up websites for people pretty continually; what you want to look for is "unmetered bandwidth"; if the company advertises "unlimited bandwidth", they are full of it. With unmetered, you get a variable amount of bandwidth on a continual basis... that's confusing. Ok. they have your server hooked to the web with a 512kbps connection. there are several other sites on the machine thats hooked. you get anywhere from 10% to 90% of that connection, depending on how popular the other sites on the machine are. So there is no monthly bandwidth limit...but if everyone on the planet tries to download from you at once, the connection will be slow. services of this type are provided by: http://www.parcom.net/home/windows_services.html and http://www.incredible.com/webhosting.php but i haven't used them lately. I would be happy to help out anyone who is in a bad plan find something better.

Thanks! I have a question for you: How familiar are you with Catalogue.com? Any thougts on their approach? I currently host three sites there. I pay close to $200 a year for three domains, an annual set up fee of $24.95 for all three (one annual fee regardless of how many sites you have), and extra space ($50/year for 25mb) for one of them. There are no monthly charges under their "free" plan. There is no advertising and they seem to load pretty fast on my end. Storeage: 30mb. I use Front Page (don't laugh!) and they support the extensions. Consequently, uploading is fast and so is updating. However, Front page stuff uses a lot of space. Bandwidth: 500 mb/month with .04/mb for bandwidth overages and $.25/mb for storeage overages. I don't do downloads since I really have none. You can purchase extra bandwidth if needed (from 5G/month for $50/year to 50G for $500/year) Your thoughts?

I wouldn't laugh at frontpage...I use it. nothing better for getting a webpage out quick. But then, I'm not an "artist". I'd say that that sounds pretty cheap for your purposes, especially if the bandwidth meets your needs, but I can see 1 freestuff entry really killing you; what's the policy on unforeseen usage? A lot of companies will just bill you automatically. I personally would probably want a little more space than that; the frontpage server extension usually eat up about 3-5mb of space all by themselves.

Glad to hear you use Front page :) It is a quick way to whip up a site! Catalogue does bill you automatically for unforeseen useage. Not my favorite approach as I much prefer to plan ahead and know what my costs are going to be for the entire year. If I ever did any "free stuff", I would definitely go ahead and puchase the 5G bandwith for $50 a year at that site. The space seems more expensive. On the one site I have what amounts to 55mb for $50/year. The other two sites I'm still at 30 mb, but may have to add more to at least one of them. I haven't looked at the logs for some time....I'm not as diligent as I should be with that stuff, plus to conserve space, I don't let them be saved for long. I would guess for an extra $100/year I could run the three sites without much worry about overages. Thanks for the feedback!