Best online file sharing & collaboration tools

Being a blogger, you would have been using one or the other file sharing service online. But today I have brought you best of the best free online file sharing, file storage and collaboration tools.

The options I have mentioned below provide you the details about how much space you will get, max file size you can upload, Alexa rank and any other specific thing you need to know. I have ranked them on the basis of popularity, the amount of space you get and max file size conditions. Also one more thing I would like to mention here is, the options below doesn't include the specific purpose file sharing facilities like photo, documents, music and video such as Google Docs, Picasa, Zoho, Photobucket, Flickr, iLike & Youtube etc. So below are the best available options right now in my opinion:

1. Windows Live Skydrive:

• Provider - Microsoft Windows Live
• Alexa Rank - 4
• Link - http://skydrive.live.com/
• Space - 5GB
• Max File Size - 50MB
• Remarks - The files can be arranged in respective folders. You can lock the files for yourself, share it with family & friends or make them public. Really cool interface and a very reliable service.

2. Xdrive:

• Provider - AOL
• Alexa Rank - 16820
• Link - http://www.xdrive.com/
• Space - 5GB
• Max File Size - No Limit
• Remarks - The files can be arranged in respective folders with a very good interface. You can lock the files for yourself, share it with family & friends or make them public. Xdrive even provides you a desktop version Xdrive Desktop Lite which lets you use your online folders as a folder on your hard drive.
• I strongly recommend it. Very reliable service and cool interface.

3. 4shared:

• Provider - 4shared
• Alexa Rank - 113
• Link - http://www.4shared.com/
• Space - 5GB
• Max File Size - No Limit 100MB
  
• Remarks - The files can be arranged in respective folders. You can share the files with family & friends or make them public. You can buy more space if you want.
• Restriction - You have to login every 30 days else your files and account will be removed.

4. Rapidshare:

• Provider - Rapidshare
• Alexa Rank - 12
• Link - http://www.rapidshare.com/
• Space - Seemingly No Limit
• Max File Size - 100MB
• Remarks - The files can be shared with family & friends or make them public. Only the uploader gets a link to the file and the file can be downloaded if that link is known. No one can search for those files.

5. Yourfilehost:

• Provider - Yourfilehost.com
• Alexa Rank - 76
• Link - http://www.yourfilehost.com/
• Space - Seemingly No Limit
• Max File Size - 25MB
• Remarks - The files can be shared with family & friends or make them public.
• Restriction - The files will be automatically deleted if there is not a single visitor in every 14 days.

6. Megaupload:

• Provider - MegaUpload
• Alexa Rank - 84
• Link - http://www.megaupload.com/
• Space - 50GB
• Max File Size - 500MB
• Remarks - The files can be shared with family & friends or you can make them public. Downloading party will have to wait for 25 to 45 seconds depending on the membership with megaupload.
• Restriction - Registered user files will remain on the server for 90 days after last download. Anonymously uploaded files will be deleted after 21 days of last download.

7. Mediafire:

• Provider - Mediafire
• Alexa Rank - 101
• Link - http://www.mediafire.com/
• Space - Unlimited
• Max File Size - 100MB
• Remarks - The files can be shared with family & friends or make them public. There is very easy interface to upload and download.
• I strongly recommend it.

8. Zshare:

• Provider - Zshare.net
• Alexa Rank - 104
• Link - http://www.zshare.net
• Space - Unlimited
• Max File Size - 100MB
• Remarks - The files can be shared with family & friends or you can make them public.
• Restriction - Files will remain on the server for 60 days after last download after that if there is no activity, they will be deleted. Unlimited downloads.

9. Easyshare:

• Provider - Easy-share.com
• Alexa Rank - 143
• Link - http://www.easy-share.com/
• Space - Unlimited
• Max File Size - 100MB
• Remarks - The files can be shared with family & friends or you can make them public.
• Restriction - Registered user files will remain on the server for 30 days after last download. Premium users files up to 20GB will remain on the server forever, beyond that above condition apply. If you want, you can buy a premium account with a discount here.

10. Driveway:

• Provider - Pro Softnet Corporation
• Alexa Rank - 32066
• Link - http://www.driveway.com/
• Space - 2GB
• Max File Size - 500MB
• Remarks - The files can be arranged in respective folders. You can lock the files for yourself, share it with family & friends or make them public. The site has many features, you can create widgets to include in your blog and many other cool features.
• I strongly recommend it.

11. Box.net:

• Provider - Box.net
• Alexa Rank - 1298
• Link - http://www.box.net/
• Space - 5GB (Only 14 days Free trial, after that $7.95 per month)
• Max File Size - 1GB
• Remarks - This is not a good option if you are looking for Free online file sharing. But if you are not worried about paying someone for premium services, then this is a good option. You might wanna try for 14 days first and see if you really liked it before buying.

12. Yahoo! Briefcase:

• Provider - Yahoo!
• Alexa Rank - 1 for Yahoo.com
• Link - http://briefcase.yahoo.com/
• Space - 30MB
• Max File Size - 5MB
• Remarks - I will say, Yahoo! is way behind all other services in terms of space and online file sharing options. I think they have to do lot more work to compete with Live, AOL and others in the same business.

13. Humyo:

• Provider - Humyo
• Alexa Rank - 26362
• Link - http://humyo.com/
• Space - 30GB (25GB media, 5GB other files)
• Max File Size - NO LIMIT
• Remarks - This is the best service available as of today. The only condition Humyo has on file storage is it allows 25GB of 30GB to be media files (songs, video etc.) and 5GB for other document files. So if you want to empty your hard drive or wanna take backup of your songs, Humyo is the way to go. Humyo provides Desktop client as well for Premium members which makes a virtual drive on your desktop just like any other drive.
• I definitely recommend Humyo.

14. GMX File Storage:

• If you use GMX Mail, then you can use GMX File storage for file sharing with friend and family. GMX provides you with 1GB of storage which you can use to share files, mp3, photos and other stuff.
• You can integrate that online drive as a Network drive on your PC for easy upload and access to file.

14. Adrive:

• Provider - Adrive
• Alexa Rank - 1883
• Link - http://www.adrive.com
• Space - 50GB
• Max File Size - 2GB
• Remarks - This is the only service available as of today providing that much of space free of cost. If you want to empty your hard drive or wanna take backup of your entire hard drive, Adrive is a promising option. A very details review about Adrive is available at the How-to Geek.
  
• I will recommend Adrive to anyone looking for large online space for free.
  

Basically all the options mentioned above have one or the other restriction : files will be deleted if not accessed in certain amount of time, max file size and number of downloads allowed per day. But if you are looking for short term file sharing option, then try anything mentioned above.

For long term and really reliable services I will suggest using Xdrive, Windows Live Skydrive, Mediafire, Humyo, Adrive or Driveway. Surprisingly there is no such service available at this time from Google which is specially for collaboration and file sharing purpose.Now that you know the best options available around, I am sure you might have been using them already or might have just started now. Tell me your experience with these services. Also tell me if you are using something else for file sharing besides these. I would like to know your views about it...If you liked this post, then please share it with your family and friends also.

Update 1 (07/08/08): Added Humyo (30GB) to the list.
Update 2 (07/16/08): Added GMX File Storage
Update 3 (08/12/08): Added Adrive (50GB) to the list.