Where can I upload this file?

November 15, 2007 6:28 PM

There is a file that I want to upload somewhere so that an infinite number of people can download it for free and without having to first sign up/become a member of anything. There should be no download limit and no expiration date. The file in question is less than 1mb in size, and is completely legal. Any suggestions?
posted by creative to computers & internet (23 comments total)

If the file is popular enough to sustain itself, you could seed it on a public torrent server.
posted by whatisish at 6:32 PM on November 15, 2007

Flickr? YouTube? Archive.org? Is there a reason you can't tell us what kind of file it is?
posted by 0xFCAF at 6:32 PM on November 15, 2007

Ah, sorry. It's an Excel file.
posted by creative at 6:35 PM on November 15, 2007

Rapidshare permits anyone to download without being a member. But I'm not sure if you have to be a member to do the upload. (I've never used it, myself.)
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:36 PM on November 15, 2007

Does your ISP not give you any personal webspace?
posted by hattifattener at 6:37 PM on November 15, 2007

What is it? What is it for? There may be a website or forum devoted to that sort of thing, with a files area. I'm pretty sure Yahoo groups have files areas too.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:41 PM on November 15, 2007

Box.com might be good for you. A few MP3 blogs I subscribe to post their sharities for download through Box, and it's super easy.
posted by Brittanie at 6:45 PM on November 15, 2007

Try hotlink files. You have to register to upload an excel file (unregistered users can only upload image files), but no registration is required to download. You get 50 MBs. There's no expiration date on file hosting....they host it until you delete it.
posted by iconomy at 6:47 PM on November 15, 2007

"Unlimited" makes this very hard.

It would be a lot easier if you had some idea of how popular this thing is going to be. If you're talking about hundreds or thousands of people a day, you need Bittorrent. But Bittorrent won't work if the file isn't in high demand; that's just how it's designed.

On the other hand, if you think there will only be a small number of downloads per day, so that you'll never transfer more than a few MB/day, you could look around and find some of the places that still offer free or low-cost web accounts (or even allegedly free document sharing). Most ISPs still give every user a few MB of web space, although few users take them up on it. (Even Comcast, possibly the chintziest ISP around, does.) I don't know if that counts as "free," but chances are it's a sunk cost already, so you might as well use it.

But there's not really a solution if you're going to get irregular spurts of hundreds of MB of transfer (enough so that you can't use a free service or your ISP's hosting, but not enough so that you can use Bittorrent). Ultimately, bandwidth is money, and people don't just give it away for free in large amounts.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:56 PM on November 15, 2007

Google Docs says that anyone can view them without a Google Account.
posted by whatisish at 6:56 PM on November 15, 2007

If you have a Google account, you can upload it to pages.google.com for free. It allows you easily set up your own page and upload/host any non-.exe file.
posted by HotPatatta at 6:59 PM on November 15, 2007

Set up a blog at wordpress.com and use the free storage the account includes.
posted by robcorr at 7:30 PM on November 15, 2007

Considering the file is under 1mb, he can permanently seed it with even crappy broadband connection. No worries about popularity, just keep bitorrent running. Heck, we dont even know the size of it zipped. It could be really tiny.

I imagine a strategy of bittorrent as well as some web mirrors would work out. THe idea is to give people options so if one method fails then the others are still working.

Also you should calculate the MD5 hash of the file so that people know if they are getting the actual file. A malicious person could put up an imposter file with a lot of mirrors and drown out the original.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:37 PM on November 15, 2007

aeschenkarnos writes "I'm pretty sure Yahoo groups have files areas too."

You have to have a yahoo account to access file areas of groups.
posted by Mitheral at 7:38 PM on November 15, 2007

drop.io is free, and will host your files for up to a year. You can always repost it?
posted by snickerdoodle at 7:45 PM on November 15, 2007

I recommend Box.net. You'd have to sign up for an account, but downloaders would not have to have an account to retrieve the file. Box offers unlimited downloads and files never expire. It's the simplest, most straight-forward of all the major upload/download websites.
posted by Mael Oui at 7:53 PM on November 15, 2007

Oh, and of course, Box.net is free (up to 1 Gigabyte - I used to have a music blog and never came close to filling that up). I should have mentioned that. Here's some more information about individual accounts.
posted by Mael Oui at 7:57 PM on November 15, 2007

Box.net and the like have bandwidth limits, don't they?

I think this is what Google Docs is made for, just make sure to set the permissions so that you don't have to have an account.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 8:51 PM on November 15, 2007

Not that other people's suggestions haven't answered it just fine, but I do like to recommend Mediafire whenever I run into this question.
posted by jinjo at 9:57 PM on November 15, 2007

Docufarm handles Excel files, it might be the way to go. Erm...unfortunately at this very moment it seems to not be working for me. I can assure you that's a first.

Anyway, it allows you to offer the document to anyone, viewable in a handy online viewer, or as a download of the original file. No signups. No limitations. Completely public (you don't specify if you want anyone out there getting their hands on the file).

As others have said, any of the file storage networks like Rapidshare, Mediafire, or Box.net can be used to store the raw file, although those places tend to be a bit icky, full of ads and captchas and waiting periods. An alternative may be Sharebee which uploads your file to multiple sites, and keeps it updated.
posted by Jimbob at 10:40 PM on November 15, 2007

Hey, if anyone is still here, you might check out DocStoc, which is built for this very sort of problem.

You can even get a nifty flash embed for your file that will make it look as if you're hosting it locally.
posted by SlyBevel at 10:52 PM on November 15, 2007

I'd be wary of DocStoc until we see how this thread pans out.
posted by robcorr at 12:16 AM on November 16, 2007

I second jinjo on MediaFire. It does exactly what you want...
posted by tuxster at 8:36 AM on November 16, 2007