With all these new hi-speed internet connections, people have gotten more greedy. Before, all you could do with dial-up was send photos via email attachments. We were happy enough if we could view a whole album. But now, with faster connections, people are sharing much more. It has grown from basic photo and document sharing to people sending each other MP3s, a complete vacation gallery or an episode of the new season of Lost. And thanks to this new range of file sharing services, you can now upload those huge files onto websites and share the link with others.

YouSendIt

www.yousendit.com
The pioneer file sharing site has two free options for you to choose from. If you just want to send a big file quick, use their form on the front page and follow its instructions­—no registration necessary. With this method, your file will be online for seven days and can only be downloaded three times. If you sign up for their Lite account, however, your file stays alive for 7 days and can be downloaded 100 times. The file uploaded should not exceed 100MB so it’s good for sending MP3s or big photo files.

Up-File

www.up-file.com
The deal here is no file size limit, no registration, and a file shelf life of 30 days after the last download. Sounds too good to be true? It is, kind of. The painful part is when you want to download the file. Underneath all the irrelevant text and flashy advertisements, there lies a link to your file, somewhere.

4Shared

www.4shared.com
You must sign up for an account to enjoy the free 1GB storage 4shared offers, but don’t let that fool you, as you can only upload files smaller than 50MB. If you don’t mind that, then sign up for an account painlessly with their well-designed menus. Your files will be deleted if you don’t log in for 30 days.

SaveFiles

www.savefiles.net
No need to sign up here; there’s no option to do so. But the navigation is confusing and they are still undecided on how big a file you can upload. In the current form it says 90MB but, in the small print, the listed limit is 250MB. Your safest bet is to stick to 90MB or try other services instead.

MegaUpload

www.megaupload.com
This site has so many flash gimmicks and online ads that you won’t know where to click. It’s equally mystifying for the ones downloading your files as they’ll have to go through lots of text ad battlefronts before actually getting their hands on them. Files should not be bigger than 500MB. If you sign up for membership, you will get free 50GB storage and can even organize your files into folders. Files stay online until neglected for 90 days (for members) but, for anonymously uploaded ones, the cutoff is 21 days. It’s a great deal if you don’t mind all the intrusive ads.

SendSpace

www.sendspace.com
Same as with YouSendIt, there are two options for freeloaders. With the first, you do not need to register for an account and can upload files that are not bigger than 300MB. For SendSpace Lite users, you can also delete files from their server if you want to. All files will stay online until no one has downloaded it for seven days. There’s no limit on how many times you can download it but it must not be over 1GB a day.

Gigasize

www.gigasize.com
This one is by far the best: the easiest to understand and soft on the eyes with less jumpy ads. If you do not have an account, you can upload a file no bigger than 300MB which will be available for at least 45 days. But if you sign up for their free account, you can upload files up to a heaping 1.5GB at a time that won’t expire for at least 90 days. You can also collect their GigaPoints for freebies.

Do’s and Don’ts

Do zip your files to save time (www.winzip.com).
Don’t upload pornographic images (we know you wouldn’t...plus Thailand has cybercops).

Do resize your images.
Don’t upload copyrighted files (it’s not nice).

Do scan your files for viruses before uploading.
Don’t spam others with useless files.

Other Ways to Get Files

Limewire is a free peer-to-peer file-sharing program. You can search for music, movies, or pictures on there and download them to your computer. You can get the software at www.limewire.com.
Pros: It’s free and has an extensive collection of downloadable materials.
Cons: The results are 40% spam, so you might get an ad instead of a file. It’s also borderline illegal.

BitTorrent is another free peer-to-peer community. When you download a file via BitTorrent, at the same time, another person can also download that file from you, which reduces the workload of the server and makes it faster. You can download the software at www.bittorrent.com.
Pros: It’s free and easy to use.
Cons: It depends on the popularity of the file. If no one is sharing the file you’re looking for, you won’t be able to get it.

IM stands for instant messengers, such as MSN, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk. You can share files with people on your friend list while chatting with them at the same time.
Pros: To find the file, just ask your friend for it and get them to send it to you.
Cons: If a connection is interrupted, you will have to start the download all over again.