Tools for sharing files with your friends

Question

What tools would you recommend for sharing files (such as photos and personal videos) with your friends and family, transparently and easily.

Ideally I would just like to say, share all photos tagged with "xyz" on my C: drive with a particular person and have the program make it happen.

Are there any solutions that employ sneakernet?

Answer 1

Dropbox is great. It bills itself as "Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy."

Answer 2

I second (or third) the DropBox suggestion. It has a software component that you install that automatically syncs your files to the cloud (Dropbox servers) so there's no need to upload files via a website. To share files you can it a few ways:

1. Use the DropBox "Public" folder. You can provide a URL to friends to download a specific file your Public folder. Because of this, some people have used Dropbox as a mini web-server for static content.

2. Use the Shared folder feature. Every friend signs up for an account (make sure to refer them to get an extra 250MB of storage for both parties). Then, you can share folders between each other (the shared folders do count toward your 2GB limit).

3. Use one account. Everyone logs into the same dropbox account. This will automatically sync files between all computers on the account.

Another alternative would be DropBoks, which is purely web-driven and gives 1GB of free space.

Answer 3

I've used Wuala to share files with my friends. You get 1GB of space free and then you can share your own HD space to get more space on the service. The amount of extra space you get is a function of your "up time" percentage and the amount of space you share. I like the fact I can give out private urls to people so only they can see the content. There is also no limit on file size.

Answer 4

A nice program I use to sync files online (it has sharing capabilities) is Dropbox (full disclosure: that's a referral link, but both you and I get 250MB extra space by signing up through it). Cross-platform syncing, easy sharing, nice website & support, etc.

Answer 5

I've been using MiniShare for years. It's also free.

Answer 6

I have registered in dyndns.org to get a host name and linked to apache running on my desktop. I copy the files that I need to share to the apache www directory. This will share all files with all users..You may have to write a script to add some functionality if you need to share only specific files.

Answer 7

There are just so many options available and it completely depends on how secure you want/need it. As others said, DropBox is a great option, or you could get a hosted server and run FTP pretty cheaply. Hamachi VPN is secure and easy. Depending on the size of what you want to share you could even use a free Google Apps account. Being that the internet is a huge mechanism for sharing data with others this could be an endless list.

As for sneakernet, you could get a set of thumb drives or external drives and use a folder sync tool, then just pass the drive(s) around to the group of sharers.

I use a combination of hosted FTP, Google Apps and Picasa to share files. It all depends on what exactly you want to share and who you want to share it with.