Free Online File Storage With Driveway

I have been swapping a lot of pictures lately with a few of my friends from a recent trip. The problem I have run into is that a picture from a 5 mega pixel camera clocks in at over a 1 meg and my university email account has a rather small cap of attachments. I switched over to my gmail account, but was still capped at about 20 megs. Thus began my search for a better way to transfer the files. I tried a few of the online photo services like flickr but I wanted the pictures transmitted in their full resolution glory.

I read about the DriveWay.com file sharing app and gave it a shot this weekend. It's a start-up that lets you transfer files up to 500 mb (I'm not sure how much cash they will burn through offering a free service with massive bandwith requirements, but maybe they are building on the YouTube business model that is all the rage these days).

The website is really easy to use. You simply click the browse button on the front page and then navigate to the file on your computer you want to upload. You can then type in an email address that the website will "park" the file for. The interface is also really clean and simple. Very web 2.0. My only concern with the service is that there do not seem to be privacy settings available that let you shield the download from the average "Joe" online. This service would work fine if I was sharing some freeware or a stock photo (aside from the obvious copyright concerns), but I'm not so sure I want my family pictures out there for everyone to see so easily.

The Verdict: Worth a bookmark and a try, (remember its free) but won't hit the mainstream until there are stronger privacy controls (or at least they are easier to find). I'm looking forward to following the services as they add features and products.