Be Excellent To Each Other

I regularly have conversations along these lines. What is the best way to transfer large files around over the internet?

Google docs lets you upload files up to 1GB I think.

One of those methods. Dropbox works well.

Until the cunts in Networks broke it, that is.

Dropbox is what I use at the moment if I have to, but it is blocked on a lot of client sites.

Can you not access it through the website? That still works for me.

Like I said Google docs, I just had a look and you can indeed upload any file as long as it isn't bigger than 1GB, it won't be blocked at most places either. If you need extra storage it's $5 a year for 20GB.

It's usually the other way round that is the problem, most of the time I can sync using the client, but if I want to share a specific file with someone and give them a weblink to it, they can't download due to it being blocked.

Do you need a google account to download the file?

Actually no. You can share it with a specific email address. Thinking about it, I've never tried with a non-google address.

No, just set it to "public on the web", anyone with the URL can view it.

Some amount of hosting is always handy for this. Put it on the cupcake hutch.

Pure Dropbox is only any good if the person you're sending files to is already a Dropbox user, though. But don't forget you can put files in your Dropbox public area and give people http:// links to them -- this is what I've done in the past. The URLs aren't guessable or browsable so this is fairly secure even for private files; if paranoia is important you could always wrap them in an encrypted zip or something.

Apple's AirDrop is really very nice for this stuff when you're on the same WLAN, incidentally.

See also:

And you've never, not once, run into a permissions problem doing that?

Edit -- also, AirDrop has an interesting funky implementation. It doesn't work how you probably think it works; it starts a hidden second Wifi network on your computer and runs some lightweight protocol over the top. This is why it only works on modern Macs -- the Wifi card in question has to support being both a client on one network and a server on another, at the same time. Weird.

Fuck you, Starsky.

Goodness no. Not on my lan, anyway

No. What the Hell?

I use Dropbox, or this server, or one of the work servers if it's easier.