Free temporary anonymous ftp storage?

March 26, 2004 5:23 AM

Free temporary anonymous ftp storage?----->

I need to give a vendor a place to upload files, from which I can download them. They don't have anonymous FTP access and neither do I. The file is too big to email. Is there some free service out there that can accomplish this? The file in question is 25mb.

posted by stupidsexyFlanders to computers & internet (11 answers total)

20 MB free space.
If this is something you need to do ofton, I'd buy the space. It isn't that expensive.
If it's a one time thing you need, the weird password you just recieved by email can be used with ftp://[e-mail]
posted by seanyboy at 5:56 AM on March 26, 2004

have you considered asking them to put the files on their web server? then they send you the url and you download them via a browser (or command line tool). it's not as nice as ftp, but it's what i do when faced with the same problem.
posted by andrew cooke at 6:00 AM on March 26, 2004

Not to mention the huge numbers of peer-to-peer programs which can be used for this sort of thing.

Then there's stuff like this.
posted by seanyboy at 6:05 AM on March 26, 2004

How about Dropload?
posted by turbanhead at 6:13 AM on March 26, 2004

Finally - wooh - this is fun ... Cyber Courier
posted by seanyboy at 6:14 AM on March 26, 2004

I second the web server option. Something like AnalogX SimpleServer would be a cinch any technologically challenged client to set up.
posted by yangwar at 6:27 AM on March 26, 2004

(i didn't mean to start a derail - my suggestion only applies if the client already has a web server. maybe we're talking about some isolated employee with no access to the company server, or no externally adressable machine).
posted by andrew cooke at 6:41 AM on March 26, 2004

That Dropload is the shit. I'm definitely hanging onto that one.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:46 AM on March 26, 2004

Have you had your vendor compress the file to see if it'll then fit into a 20MB webspace?

Or you could have the vendor compress it into a multi-part zip file, like people used to use to move stuff bigger than 1.44MB, and email the chunks at regular intervals.

Or have them overnight you a cd.

Or, assuming they're using WinXP and can control the machine they're using, get on the phone with them. Have them set up an ftp server using IIS, log onto it immediately and get the file, and then tell them it's okay to turn it off.

There are *lots* of options for stuff like this.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:55 AM on March 26, 2004

Oh, Dropload would have been so handy the other night. (Are you thinking what I'm thinking, kaibatsu? We still might end up using this...)

Thanks for pointing it out!
posted by arco at 7:09 AM on March 26, 2004

I believe Yahoo's Briefcase service allows you to store up to 30mb of files.

You can set up a new Yahoo account and set up the Briefcase. You can use the same account to share files with different clients by specifying which users can access each folder. Of course, each user must have his own Yahoo account.
posted by timyang at 12:10 AM on March 27, 2004