Yahoo drops its Briefcase

Yahoo plans to discontinue its Briefcase service, which allows people to store files online for free.

The service will be shut down on March 30, the company said Wednesday. Yahoo is warning users to retrieve or delete their documents before that date.

Briefcase, which offered 30MB of online storage, was launched almost 10 years ago. However, "usage has been significantly declining over the years, as users outgrew the need for Yahoo Briefcase and turned to offerings with much more storage and enhanced sharing capabilities," the company said in a statement.

There are now many alternative online storage services to Briefcase. Notable rivals include Microsoft's SkyDrive, a Windows Live service that offers 25GB of free storage.

There are also signs that Google may be preparing a free online storage product called GDrive. Recent reports have pointed to a reference to GDrive in an online, recently updated file associated with its Google Pack bundle of free software, which includes Chrome and Picasa. The file text says that GDrive "provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents [and] allows you to access your files from anywhere, any time and from any device - be it from your desktop, web browser or mobile phone."

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[brian.lee]

And this is why people should be wary of Free online services such as Gmail, yahoo mail, hotmail etc...

[BigGuns149]

I can remember a number of online storage sites that offered free storage back in the late 90s that ended up going away with little or no warning. The only advantage of using a free service from MS, Google, or Yahoo is that there probably will be at least some warning, but there is no guarantee that they will continue the service forever.

[loose_screw]

You get what you pay for. I thought that was understood.

At least my Gmail account has lasted longer than my ISP email accounts.

[discern]

What, pay services are immune to shutting down?

[mikehill33]

Yahoo sucks. Expect the same for Flickr within the year as Yahoo dismantles itself before complete flameout and FAIL.

[flickrz]

Grow up kid......I bet you don't know anything about revenue, profits, expenses etc.

[yanchineseguy]

*sigh*

[cabrillo24]

Yahoo Briefcase? Is this 1999? Is GDrive even necessary? Google already provides a repository for photos and documents. I guess it would be nice for executable and other type of files.....SkyDrive is pretty solid. Can't wait to see GDrive brings to the table.

[Seaspray0]

"Briefcase". I haven't heard that term used since windows NT. It IS old.

[magicmaster]

(yawn)

Yahoo must make an inventory of outdated services...briefcase is so 90s.

[BigGuns149]

Why do you think that Yahoo has struggled so much in recent years?

In a lot of ways they seem to be behind the times. Cleaning up their website by eliminating various services that virtually nobody is using is probably a good thing. Most analysts agree that the whole portal concept is somewhat passe, but Yahoo seems to try to keep reinventing by slightly redressing their services.

[magicmaster]

If I am reading bigguns149's reply correctly, your view aligns with mine.

[siouxmoux]

I thought Yahoo Shutdown their Briefcase Years ago. Only 30MB Fine for 1998 But with Microsoft offering 25gigs for free "for now until they shut their Skydrive service" or Gdrive from google. Why even bother with yahoo.

[big8news]

yahoo ben killing all there services for long time now just like net zero has too net zero had vop service and a photosite gone and yohoo had y live video chat best video site out there gone i will never store any thing on yahoo again becouse like to kill it any ways there going done hill

[jashsayani]

Damn it!! I was using Y! Briefcase for over 6 years and have tons of old data.
Will have to download the whole thing and upload it to the upcoming GDrive....

By the way, is there a way to fetch the whole Briefcase in a zipped form ? Or are they allowing FTP access to retrieve all the files ?

[FilesAnywhere]

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[Maccess]

This is a sign that Yahoo is going down the tubes. Briefcase is used by the most loyal Yahoo users--the people who have had their yahoo account for years, the people who take the time to read the emails, to read the ads. It was one of the reasons why I never really used my google account. I used Yahoo briefcase to store offline important documents that I COULD need while travelling, or copies of documents that I couldn't afford to lose through disasters. Whoever made this decison was only looking at the numbers (far fewer briefcase users than mail or YM users), not the quality of the users: Briefcase users immerse themselves in the whole yahoo online experience. If you've discovered briefcase, you've likely also discovered notepad, banking, autos, etc. They're also the ones that Google would find the hardest to pull...and now Yahoo is throwing all that away... a pity.