Here at work, we run across some pretty large files. The majority are larger than what traditional email can cope with. Traditional FTP is our primary choice. For whatever reason (firewalls, corporate policy, ignorance) some people just won’t get with the program – even when it’s FREE.Unlike Bittorrent, Azureus, Limewire etc., these are probably a bit more private. I’d send sensitive data through the sites below before I’d use the Bittorrent stuff.Firewalls and corporate policy are legitimate concerns. They may even make these apps below stop working. Give them a try to find out. They are really handy.Without further ado, here are some of my favorites: (note you’ll probably have to click on the picture thumbnail to see the picture. Not sure what happened…)
yousendit.com – About as simple as it gets. It’s free. It’s a website. If you register you get a few more perks. Registration isn’t mandatory, though.
You need to know your email address and the addresses of the people you want to send the file.
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As you can see from here, the interface is minimal. It’s not a big deal to learn. It’s just a matter of putting a little bit of relevant information in there and shooting it across to the people waiting for it. Your recipient receives an email when the uploaded file ready for them to download. Make sure yousendit is not on their spam blacklist or it will go unnoticed. |
Eatlime.com – Pretty nifty little site in that a download can begin concurrently with the uplaod. This is handy for large time-sensitive files up to 1GB (1000 megabytes) in size. Consider the following:
- with a T-1, you get approx. 170KB/Sec upload speed.
- Sending a 1GB file can take upwards of 90 minutes to upload.
- It takes another 90 minutes to download. In that time, 3 hours is gone.
With an app like this, the time is almost reduced by half. It helps if the upload is a little quicker than the download.
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Registering with the site will allow you to send up to 1GB files. It’s simple. Just click “Add Files” and select the files you want to send. It will begin uploading and give you the share link below. Just copy and email it to the recipient. It’s a big time saver to be able to concurrently upload and download files. |
Pipebytes – This is another concurrent file transfer site. You can send any size file through here. The only catch, if you call it that, is if you want to send the file for multiple downloads, you have to upload it again. It doesn’t just sit somewhere waiting to be downloaded by anyone with a link to it.
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Here are several windows showing different states of the file transfer. First, you pick some files or folders to upload (top screen). It gives a pickup code. The other person goes to Pipebytes and enters the pickup code. (middle window). Finally, the recipient gets a window to begin downloading. Simple as that. All you have to do is call or email the pickup code to the recipient. |
Drop.io – No email signup and no accounts to manage. This is kind of like the photo site pixentral.com. You can subscribe to different drop points. Read below to see what I mean.
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Here is the main working area. What you do is:
- add a file by clicking the green “Add Files” button.
- Then, you assign the files you drop a web address (minimum 7 characters).
- You also have option to password protect.
- You can have the file remain available for a specific time.
- You can decide how others access the file.
- Finally click the red “Drop It” button.
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The cool part:
- The url is the site the recipient can go to pull the file(s) down.
- The Email address is cool. You send an image to that email address and it is sent up to that page.
- Same goes for voicemail
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Podmailing – More like Pando than most of the rest. I wasn’t thrilled with the upload speed this last time. Hopefully something was temporarily messed up somewhere. The file made it, but … hmmm. Oh well. It’s worked before so I’ll talk about it.Basically, what you do is:
- download and install the OS X or Windows client.
- click “new”
- Locate files you want to upload
- set the email address to receive the link and begin the transfer.
Your recipient will receive an email link. Their podmail client will open it up and that’s all there is to it.
Pando – Ah, Pando. We use this mostly. It requires a download but I think it’s one of the smoothest non-concurrent file sharing apps around. It’s probably the best secret nobody (other than nearly 20 million people) know about.
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You just select a file, upload and the person will receive an email the file is ready. You can also keep track of when they pull the file down onto their computer. |
Anyclient – This is basically a dedicated FTP client that runs as a Java App inside a browser. Even though there are plenty of free standalone FTP clients, not everyone seems interested. Also, many corporations have computers locked down. People can’t install new software. As long as Java is enabled, you can run this.
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Here is the main connect window that opens inside your browser.
- host: generally in the format of
ftp.somewhere.com
- username is supplied by the people on the other side
- password is generally case sensitive and supplied by the people who give the user name
- connection type will generally be
ftp but may also be sftp or something else. Bank on ftp though.
- Local Directory can be left blank. Many people put a forward slash (that thing under the ? key.
- Remote Directory can be left blank in most cases.
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Once connected, you will see your local system on the left and the server you have connected to on the right. When you are done, just disconnect.
