Rapidshare is a popular site for sharing files. With free access you can only download 1 file per hour. Here is how you can bypass this limit on Linux.

This hack is applicable to (A)DSL users without static IP address. In India DataOne Broadband is one such provider. To bypass the limit run the following command from a Linux terminal:
ifdown ppp0; ifup ppp0

This will close your DSL connection and re-open it, which in most cases will assign you with a different IP address.

You can check your current IP address with the following command:
adsl-status /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ppp0

Note: Do not run this while a file is being downloaded.

You should also clear the browser cache. You can do it easily on Firefox by pressing Ctrl-Shift-Del.
In IE 6 go to Tools->Internet Options->General and click on Delete Cookies.

I have tested this on Fedora Core 6. You can put this in a shortcut and run directly from GUI.

Note: The ipconfig hack reported elsewhere doesn't work on Linux because of the simple reason that it isn't there. The alternative is ifconfig but the commands aren't same.

Windows users can disconnect and reconnect their DSL connection to achieve the same effect.

Note 2: The Rapidshare javascript hack for reducing the download wait time doesn't work because now they also check on the server side.