Comments on: Sending big files with SendThisFile

SendThisFile competes well with YouSendIt and Box.net for sending large files that are too big to be e-mailed.

[hadianwer]

soooooooo??

i think i'll try it

[tenc21]

Offensive File Sending

For someone proudly professing to be a defensive geek, your points on sending big files are almost offensive. First and foremost, you never even mention the possibility (however remote, but no more unlikely than the ridiculous scenarios you pose in your many postings) that sending files to an unknown 3rd party for subsequent downloading is inherently dangerous. Who knows what this 3rd party may do with that file--you never say the uploaded file should be encrypted or otherwise protected somehow before sending. Shame on you!

Just because you make a guess that it is trustworthy or not untrustworthy based on some superficial criteria does not legitimize that 3rd party. Could it not embed some secret code in a jpeg someone uploads for download by a poor unsuspecting grandpa? Isn't your unprotected file on their server subject to whatever manipulation they choose to perform? Couldn't a stealth cookie or popup come to unsuspecting downloaders via big files (jpegs, mpegs, wav, whatever)?

And you worry about harvesting of email addresses? There are spam blockers for your paranoia about that; but you don't even consider what defense you might need to combat a big file Trojan horse? In a defensive computing blog, that's an outright disgrace.

The Wall Street Journal is no source for computer advice, according to you in your previous posts. As you point out here, the WSJ reveals SendThisFile.com has four full-time employees. But in the website's "contact us" page, it only gives their address as "Wichita Kansas." This 4 employee organization is that big that the USPS in Wichita knows who they are with no street address, no zip and not even even a post office box? A sage Internet surfer knows never to trust anyone who doesn't list a good old fashioned brick and mortar street address that can be checked out. Why would a defensive computing specialist ever recommend a company that is recommended by WSJ and that does not give a street address? Are you one of the 4 employed by them or maybe you own their stock?

Get with the program, be defensive, not offensive.

[mhinnewyork]

tenc21 is a stalker

Don't pay any attention to the comments made by tecn21. He, she or it is a stalker, doing nothing but griping about anything and everything I say. The persons purpose is not to debate anything just to argue. They comment on every blog posting of mine, regardless of the topic. Ignore their comments.
Michael Horowitz

[jackp525]

Partially good luck...

I have an iDisk account with Apple. As may have been reported elsewhere, iDisk is currently experiencing some problems. I use the system to post large video files for my clients to approve. I've been searching for a (preferably free) service to replace iDisk, at least for now, because when Idisk is working, it's a dream.

I found a few over the past few days, but they were all problematic...one even offered the choice between browser and FTP uploading options. I couldn't even connect with the FTP site.

SendThisFile seems to work pretty well, but I have one concern. In trying to upload two almost identical files individually, the first file went flawlessly. I set up the second file to upload, then left the office for a few hours. When I returned, I found a message asking if I really wanted to go to another browser page...since I hadn't been near the computer, I was a bit confused.

As prompted, I clicked on 'Cancel', indicating I wanted to continue with the upload, but it seemed as if the system had timed out. I set up the transfer again, and left the office again. When I returned, I found the same problem. For whatever reason, I thought that incoming mail may have had something to do with the problem, so I closed Outlook and all my other programs. This time the file went completely. I'm not sure if it's coincidence or not, but it seemed to be related.

BTW, I followed your suggestion, and had the confirming email sent back to me. I then forwarded the link to my client, and she had no trouble downloading the file.

Thanks for the tip!

[victoriajameson]

ummm...i've seen better

guys this stuff is cool, but there are better services. Michael, I suggest you check out eatlime.com...now they're doing something amazing. A friend recommended it to me and the main difference is that as you begin uploading the file, others can start downloading it immediately. they also have a really cool desktop client. I highly recommend it. btw, what's all the arguing about...tenc21.

[mhinnewyork]

upload problems

I can think of a couple possible problems when uploading large files with any service.

First, your computer may go to sleep and cause an interruption. In the Windows XP control panel, go to power options and stop the hard disk from spinning down, stop suspending and stop hibernating. After the upload, reset these to their original values.

Also, the problem may be your ISP who may not appreciate the huge traffic. To see if this is the problem, try the upload with more than one service and perhaps at an off-peak time.

Michael Horowitz

[kmegaacn]

I'm a musician and my band members and I swap recordings that we are learning back and forth using SendThisFile. I purchased the minimum account to avoid the "throttling" of the up/downloads. It has worked perfectly for us. In about 18 months of use, I have had a glitch maybe 5 times - in every case, I tried again immediately and it worked perfectly.

I recommend SendThisFile to my friends whenever the subject of big email attachments comes up.

Cheers, all.

[jefff2006]

We're using www.boltfile.com after trialing SendThisFile's free service for a few months - they seems to have a good service - but we had a few issues with uploading multiple files simultaniously and looked for alternatives. BoltFile is a more business orientated service (perfect for us as we need to send and receive files from our clients) which allows us to customise the branding (logos etc) shown to our customers - they also have some cool features for sending SMS alerts when files are sent or received - recommended.

jeff d

[schulzkeil]

I had a bad experience with sendthisfile. It tok me forever to upload two files and I later found out that they charges me for the FAILED UPLOAD ATTEMPTS. They also charged me for FAILED DOWNLOAD ATTEMPTS. All in all they charged a small fortune to my creit card. My advice: Stay away from this servce.

[my-dropzone]

There are several great services out there for sending large files.

I'd like to also share another great resource for sending, receiving and storing files. And, the good thing is, everything is drag and drop. There's not browse and attach. It's web based, secure and you can drag and drop files from you desktop or other PC location to the dropzone to send as a link, attachment, or direct to other dropzone users. It's like having your own private, secure network. You can send files to anyone, anywhere from anywhere.

You can register for a free account 100 mb to try it out and see how easy it is.

Check it out: www.my-dropzone.net.

[burtongavin]

I was actually looking at the possibility of using this kind of service to exchange large photographs with other photographers, but dropped it after running a test with one of the free accounts at sendthisfile.

I have Bell High Speed Internet up and running but their file transfer (due to throttling) only displays 432Kbps. The file size was 67.3MB (TIF) and required 21 minutes and 57 seconds to upload. A good thing I don't want to send 100.