Sharing Monster Files: Three Free FTP Apps
Do you need to send and receive very large files on a very frequent basis. If you work with audio, video or presentations a lot, you probably do. I’m a fan of several of the online file storage and sharing sites. but the problem with these are the restrictions, especially on how large a file you can move in one upload. For sharing really large files online, I turn to good FTP applications. If you don’t use one, the good news is that there are many good, free ones.
Many readers of this blog use Macs, and Cyberduck is a very highly regarded, free, open source application that can do either FTP or SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer) transfers. Unlike a lot of FTP programs, it integrates with a number of Mac OS X’s built-in features. For example, there is a Spotlight importer for bookmark files, and synchronizing remote directories with local ones will feel familiar to any regular Mac user.
SlimFTPd is a great application if you want a program with a very tiny footprint that you might keep, say, on a USB key. The footprint is a tiny 22K.
For Windows users who want a very feature-rich and flexible FTP application, FileZilla is good. Check out some of the screenshots of it here. FileZilla, like CyberDuck is an open source application, and it follows Windows application conventions very closely. There is, for example, a Site Manager console that makes toing FTP transfers very much like working with Windows Explorer.
If you’ve been frustrated by the online storage providers’ restrictions on moving files around, you’re not alone. I use ADrive, for example, because it gives me a whopping 50GB of space for free. However, like the rest of the online storage sites, the files I upload there have to stay tiny, and I don’t want to upload large files in small parts. That’s where one of the free FTP applications can really come to the rescue.
How do you go about sharing large files?
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Filezilla also works on linux
Hi, you have recommended ADrive, I too have an account there.
However, I recently had a bad experience with a site MediaMax that used to provide 25 GB of space. I lost all my data without notification. Read my story here: http://alchemistpoonam.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/streamloadmediamaxlinkup-cheats-and-offenders-on-web/
Now, my question is can we trust ADrive? Can we trust any other online storage site? How can we be sure that our data is safe?
@ Poonam: I also had a miserable exprience with MediaMax. I switched to ElephantDrive which I use for backup and for sharing big files.
Their support chat convinced me it would be better because with the backup program running, the files I share are already uploaded so there’s no wait time when I decide to share. So far, I’m impressed. Pretty decent. REporting could be a lot better, but they support PC/Mac/Linux.
Check it: http://www.elephantdrive.com
filezilla also works on mac! cyberduck is alright, transmit is mediocre.
i love my filezilla.
i love webdrive as a windows ftp client because it actually allows me to assign any ftp location to a drive letter. then all of my apps which can address a local drive can use a remote filesystem… even dos xcopy! one of my favorite uses was when i was trying to use a feature of office and it asked me to insert the ms-office installation disk (which was at home on my PC 2000 miles away). However, by mapping the cdrom’ drive’s drive letter to a directory on my home pc that contained the backup of my ms+office install disks… voila!
$60