File hosts are a nice way to easily share files with your family, friends, and pirate software. Mainly for the latter, but for us who don't wish to get fined thousands of dollars, file hosts can be an excellent way for us to spread various files.
But, if you do a Google search for "free file hosts" you'll get 4,980,000 results. So, you must think, which of these shall I use? Or maybe, you don't... but, none the less, if you want to share a large file, or a small one, you'll need a nice site to host your files.
Rapidshare is a German company, that has been around for a while. The main advantage of using Rapidshare is that the average download speed (for a premium user) is about 1 megabytes per second. So, if you were to download a 100mb file it would take about 100 seconds. Not a bad deal if I may say so myself. But, there are 2 bad parts to this. The first, is that to download from Rapidshare effeciently you have to be a premium member, which costs about $50 for 6 months. The second, is that the maximum file size is 100mb. So you have to use "split-archives", which are basically compressed RAR archives that are split into multiple pieces that you have to have together to decompress. So overall, if you need to share that large powerpoint, or Halo 2, Rapidshare is one of the best ways to go.
Megashares, I must say, is one of the coolest hosts I have ever seen. Megashares lets you upload a file that can be up to 10GB large (using the custom uploader), or 1.5GB large using the standard uploader. You can also purchase "link cards" that allow you to download files of any size, quickly. But without a link card, it takes forever to download a large file. But, Link Cards are cheap (about $20 for 6 months) so Megashares is a great option if you have a little extra cash hanging around. But the main disadvantage is that your files have to be downloaded at least once in 5 days, or 5 times in 25 days.
GigaSize is a fairly nice file host, without that many ads or strings attached. With a free account (it's free xD) you get to host 600mb per file, which isn't that bad. I could store my entire picture collection with that much space. Also, your files stay hosted for 90 days without a download, which is the same as Rapidshare, but you can only have up to 2 (with a free account) downloads at once. Which is ok, I guess. But the thing that really makes GigaSize a decent competitor is that it allows you to gain "GigaPoints" which you get 1 per each file download. After you get enough of those you can upgrade your account for a certain amount of time. Rapidshare has a similar service, but you need far less GigaPoints than Rapidshare Points to get a premium account.
When I first saw Friendly Files, I thought "Oh wow! Unlimited file size, sweet!". But then thats where my problems started... I tried uploading a 500kb file to the site, and it took about 3 hours to do so (yet my upload speed is about 512 kbps). So the only way I could get a file uploaded was to do it via FileHo.com. But then, after I went through all of that trouble. I found out that I would have to download it in Internet Explorer. And if that wasn't enough, I would also have to download and install a download manager called "ADS Technology", which I thought was a little much to ask for a 500kb file. So, I recommend against using Friendly Files, "cause it"s not that friendly.
So, if you need to share Crysis, or Halo 2, go with Megashares. If you need to share that photo of you and your nephew to your grandparents, use GigaSize. If you need to backup your software (or download other "software backups") use Rapidshare. And whatever you do, do not use Friendly Files/FileHo unless you plan on downloading things in Internet Explorer using an unknown download manager.
