Recommendation for free file transfer sites?

September 17, 2009 6:08 AM

Need one-time transfer of some large video files (50 - 300 MB) from China to the US. Recommendation for free file transfer sites?
posted by ZenMasterThis to Technology (13 answers total)

yousendit.com
posted by derbs at 6:23 AM on September 17, 2009

sorry, maximum 100meg (unless you pay the $10/month). Good service though, very quick. Could look into splitting the 100+ meg ones up
posted by derbs at 6:25 AM on September 17, 2009

Try Megaupload.
posted by boomcha76 at 6:38 AM on September 17, 2009

Pando has a 1GB limit, and it works well for sending large files one time to one person. The downside is that it requires a client to be installed on both ends, and the uploaded files are only available for 7 days.
posted by burnmp3s at 6:41 AM on September 17, 2009

I might be a little ignorant re: internet freedoms in China, but in case you don't have access to those sites, you could always use .rar archive files and send via email.
posted by mrsshotglass at 6:45 AM on September 17, 2009

Best answer: I haven't had a reason to send a 300MB file, so these aren't all personal recommendations but:

Server-based (server in between you and receiver- less secure but more stable)
Justupit.com
Transferbigfiles.com

P2P-based (service only links your two computers- more secure but typically you have to both keep your browsers open during the whole transfer)
Pipebytes.com
Fileai.com

As derbs suggested, I prefer yousendit.com for <100MB transfers (because it's been very stable and has a progress bar during the upload-- some services don't actually have this) so maybe use free hjsplit to split files into <100MB chunks?
posted by sharkfu at 6:47 AM on September 17, 2009

Dropbox lets you store 2gb, and you could either give the other person your login info, or put them in a public folder and send them the link.
posted by backwards guitar at 7:10 AM on September 17, 2009

Keep in mind you can always use something like Winrar to break your files into appropriately sized chunks for whatever transfer method you choose, in case you find something that works well but only takes smaller chunks.

That said, the following seem to work fine:
http://uploaded.to/
http://storage.to/
Megaupload as well as mentioned above.
posted by reptile at 7:11 AM on September 17, 2009

As mentioned, you can use a program like Winrar to break each file into parts and simply email them. Gmail allows 25MB but for most providers, the limit is 10MB.
posted by jeffmik at 8:35 AM on September 17, 2009

One thing to consider is the limitations to different file transfer websites from within China. When I was there years ago 'net access had its limitations (many news sites like cnn.com and bbc.co.uk would go up and down depending on the winds of censorship), and I can imagine now that it would be much more limited, especially with the ability to transfer video.

So perhaps you can setup a test first for several of the good suggestions above...
posted by scooterdog at 12:33 PM on September 17, 2009

S4ve.as

URL is good for 24 hours from the time of creation. Free, no size limit.
posted by timepiece at 11:43 AM on September 19, 2009

timepiece: "S4ve.as

URL is good for 24 hours from the time of creation. Free, no size limit."

They've been offline since Sept. 13th.
posted by sharkfu at 1:35 PM on September 19, 2009

Well, shoot.
posted by timepiece at 3:13 PM on September 19, 2009