Best 5 Online File Sharing Services
In the current online environment file sizes are rapidly increasing and it is becoming a lot easier to share files. Here is a list of the five most popular file sharing services available today.
Box.net – Box.net is probably the most popular file sharing service available today. Box.net provides their users with 1GB of free space, collaboration tools, web service support and rss feeds. Like many others in this Hive Five, Box.net provides direct links to files so users aren’t held up at a landing page to get their download. Box.net’s biggest drawback is its free account’s filesize limit, which sits at a rather paltry 10MB.
Drop.io – Drop.io has one of the most simplistic interfaces around and it doesn’t even require registration for use. Drop.io specialises in document sharing, offering built-in previews of everything from images to PDFs. The free account has a 100MB storage limit, so unless you’re ready to spend some cash, Drop.io is best-suited for smaller files. Make sure you keep a close eye on drop.io cause they are adding more new services every month.
Windows Live SkyDrive – Windows Live SkyDrive currently offers users a free 25GB of storage space. Although this isn’t as big as Drop.io, it is only a new service from Microsoft SkyDrive works on a folder-based system, emphasizing the ability to organize your files in personal, shared, and public folders. SkyDrive requires a Windows Live account to get started, individual uploads are limited to 50MB.
MediaFire – Users love unlimited storage, and MediaFire offers just that. The service is free, offers unlimited disk space, and requires no sign-up to use any of the site’s features. The files you upload, however, can only be up to 100MB in size.
FolderShare – FolderWShare is more of a file syncing toll than a traditional file sharing service. FolderShare lovers emphasize the ease with which they can share a folder on their desktop, then quickly sync the folder’s contents to a friend’s computer. All you have to do is set it up, then any file you drag into a shared folder is automatically replicated on computers you’re sharing folders with.
10 Comments
Hi, this is Sean over at Box.net. I just wanted to mention that our free 1 GB accounts allow users to upload files up to 25 MB, up from the previous 10 MB limit. Of course, our paid plans offer more collaboration features, additional space and the ability to upload files up to 1 GB each.
Hey Steven-
Jeff here from MSFT Office Live Outreach. Another online file storage/sharing service from Microsoft that you should take a look at is Office Live Workspace. Each Workspace comes with 5GB of free storage and the service can be easily integrated into the Microsoft Office Suite or used as a stand-alone service.
Have a good day!
Jeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach
http://workspace.officelive.com/LearnMore
One more thing- SkyDrive actually comes with 25 GB of storage space, not 5 GB
I’ve got an Amazon S3 account fro work and I use Mosso Cloud files at home, as well as my son using box.net. I’ve been using SMEStorage.com to get access to all these files as one file system either on the web or using windows tools (or in my sons case his iPhone).
I’m really impressed with the service and we use files sharing a lot both at home and work. We can file share using the web applicaiton, the windows application and through firefox using the plugin (which I use a lot). My son shares his files on Facebook using the service also.
cool article steven, my two cents – go with something for free. I use sizablesend.com and send gigs worth of files all the time. never cost me anything either
Thanks for the great review. I thought I had my evaluation today down to Box.net or DropBox. You’ve opened up some options.
So, I have to ask…which service do you use?
I think QDrive.net is better then those. SSL Encryption STANDARD, 1GB free storage, simple easy to use interface.
Most of all the SSL Encryption, most sites charge for that.