A few thoughts
I don't download much, but I have of late been looking into file hosts since one host used by my office a great deal, ** DEAD LINK REMOVED **, was banned in UK with EU limits now being engaged in.
I have not experienced any "viruses" or virus reports from Rapidgator themselves, but as with other hosts this may actually be triggered either by the coding that enables download managers or more frequently by embeds in any pop up or inline advertisement. It could be ads themselves. I have discovered several malicious ads contained on hosts sites. But it can also come from the interaction between ads and adblockers/popupblockers you may have installed. All this stuff works in similar ways so be sure of what is causing your reaction. It might not be the immediate report you have been given.
Rapidgator is a limited host in free mode. You have to pay attention to the countdown and go through the captcha in good time. Delay too long and the inbuilt timers tell you the captcha has expired and you have to wait another hour for a slot. It used to be that you could bypass that by deleting rg cookies, however they found a way to plug that gap. It's tedious if you get distracted while waiting anything between 60-240secs for the clock to countdown.
Another really tedious issue is that teh countdown clock sometimes goes all the way down then resets. this I discovered was a fault in the original link. I found that sometimes the url new rapidgator window/tab from the original link contained additional code. At the end of the properurl is a referrer code string that begins "?refer..." If you select everything from that "?" after the original .html to the end and delete it then press go again, that will tae you to the true link page and you can run through the process without issue. it's a pain in the bum but once you know about it spotting it becomes automatic.
On the whole however I have found that if you can access them, RG's servers are clean, the connection stable and the speed fairly constant and not prohibitively slow.
When I read discussions on file hosts I find a few things to be constant and true. Most people want a one stop solution. No host provides a one stop solution. Most people experience one or more issues with every host and think theirs is everyone's experience. Most hosts have different site-builds hosted in different countries and each one of these offers a unique set of constraints/issues. These are different for people depending on which region they are accessing from.
In my view there are advantages/disadvantages to every host and RG are no different. The older and more stable hosts like RG and Deposit still serve as a vital backstop. Advocating their removal as a host is a disservice to those who find them accessible and serviceable. I can no longer access ** DEAD LINK REMOVED ** because of their banning, but I would not advocate their removal as a host. I'd merely ask that content not be posted only to ** DEAD LINK REMOVED **.
It would be far more useful to all forum members if links were posted to as many hosts as possible to maximise accessibility. It;s unreasonable to expect all forum posters to put up six links or more, but what's to stop other members or moderators with fast premium access from helping to provide additional mirrors? We are a global forum. Shouldn't our members all be able to access content? And as a community, shouldn't we be more concerned with helping each other out rather than worrying about credit or click-thru pennies?
BOC