Free & Good WebDrive

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Can anyone recommend one that’s tried+tested?

Thanks.

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OK, since no one else has responded yet, I’ll bite AND show my ignorance! What’s a WebDrive?

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Edited by WyllyWylly to add URL code. See the Quick Guide.[/i][/size]

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/On_the_…al_Disk_Drives/%5B/url%5D

has a list of some.

Basically space on a webserver you can store your files on.

Problem is finding one that is FREE and GOOD.

m.q.

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Thanks for the education. OK, so there are four free ones listed at the link you gave. So what happens with the “good” part? Do they have a reputation for losing your data? Man, that could be scary!

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My ISP offers a certain amount of free space for each account.
Don’t most/all ISPs offer such space?

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My ISP – Adelphia – offers free 10MB…I just found out about it (have had cable since 4/2000 and never knew about it)…they set up my webspace for me, but dang! I have no idea what to do…naturally no instructions given…but they do list FrontPage98 or Netscape Composer or Adobe Pagemill for the HTML Editor and for FTP Clients we can choose WS_FTP or Cute FTP …which doesn’t tell me anything at all. Wish they had instructions on what to do…I am not too good at stuff like that.

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Let’s be careful folks, that we don’t morph this thread away from MUSAB’s original question! He’s asking about web storage, NOT web page space. I agree that many ISPs offer so-called free web page space, but I don’t think that’s what he’s asking about. Besides, a few megabytes of web page space isn’t what you would call good space for FILE storage and retrieval, no?

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Well, that’s what I read into what he was asking. No matter. He’d be better off looking for a place to pay for storage then…if what he needs is quite an amount of space for files.
Other more knowledgeable members here should respond then…they would know about it.

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With my ISP, I just use the stuff that I have.
I FTP to the web site to change things.
I use whatever I want to change pages offline, then PUT them to the web site, no fancy tools needed.

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Howard, I believe the point is to gain more than the limited amount of space that most ISPs offer. Musab would need to clarify his needs; perhaps a minimal amount of space is sufficient for him, but I am under the impression that something more is required. Webdrives serve a different purpose than an ISP.

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Howard…that’s fine and dandy…but I have no clue as to any of this stuff – a total newbie to all of this. I don’t even know what FTP is – which shows you all that I know about anything. .

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Musab –

I don’t know the reasons that you’re looking for a webdrive, but – you get what you pay for. In the case of something like this, “good” and “free” are polar opposites.

Your best bet is to find a web hosting company that offers FTP access, since all modern versions of Windows and other operating systems have this capability built in. Response times and transfers are much, much more acccurate and reliable that way. Plus, depending on your storage needs, you can find something like that for around 5 USD a month on up – if you’re not going to host an e-commerce website or something that requires critical features for business, you don’t need to fork over lots of for things like ASP and FrontPage extensions.

Something to consider – I would personally stay as far away from a webdrive as I could!!

Edited to add:
I need to clarify – I’m not referring to the meager amount of space that an ISP provides for a small personal website. I’m speaking here in terms of your own domain. Webdrives will have more stringent limits on the use of bandwidth than owning a domain, where your limits will be much higher; if you’re not hosting a web and are using it strictly for storage, you reap all the benefits instead of sacrificing some of your monthly bandwidth allocation for page hits.

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WyllyWylly am I reading this right? You are recommending getting your own domain and using it for storage? I know nothing about domains. Or webdrives.

As for “free” I tried to save some of the witty posts from the Lounge in a “free” storage site and they went pay so I couldn’t even pull my files without paying them.

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You undestood correctly. Webdrives are essentially someone else’s domain, and they share their space with you.

Domains are, for example:

• http://www.wopr.com[/url%5D
• http://www.broge.com[/url%5D
• http://www.yale.edu[/url%5D
• http://support.microsoft.com[/url%5D%5B/list%5DThe domain is the name appearing before .net, .com, .org, and others. Email goes through the domain as well as your website, if you prefer. My email address listed in my user profile, WyllyWylly@WOPR.com, is part of the same domain that the Lounge uses. In an email address, anything after the “at” (@) symbol is the domain name. WyllyWylly@[b]WOPR[/b].com ….. http://www.WOPR[/b].com …..

  You can purchase the rights to use the name from http://www.netsol.com[/url%5D, or a number of web hosting companies (mine is http://www.ipowerweb.com[/url%5D) will take care of the details for you. When you purchase the domain and sign up for hosting, you typically get about 200MB storage space, much more than any ISP gives you for the privilege of Internet access, and usually more than the webdrives. Since you are footing the bill that makes sense. Web hosting can be found from cheap (5 USD) on up, with varying options.

  Hope that helps….

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Two comments on Mark’s post: (1) for storage purposes, you will want to find a host with good security; these probably aren’t files you want to share with the world; (2) given a choice, try a different registrar (e.g., Register.com); VeriSign has made my life difficult time and time again and I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to experience that.

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Jefferson,

At risk of steering this thread off topic, could you elaborate on the difficulties you’ve had with VeriSign? I’ve not had problems – knock on wood – but typically I go straight to the source, so to speak. I found Register.com’s tactics a bit underhanded when my personal domain neared expiry; they send you a notification in advance and to the uninitiated it looks for all the world like you need to renew through them as if the original transaction was theirs. I haven’t dealt with them so I have reserved judgement thus far – advertising or no, I would prefer that they were more upfront when they are looking for clientele.

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Hi
Sorry I have not had time to read the thread in detail, but by ‘web-drive’ I’m assuming On-Line Storage. As someone pointed out, this is not the same as the free web-space your ISP supplies. OLS is (supposed to be) ultra-secure, but files on it can be shared with members of the ring. There used to be several free versions knocking around, but as far as I’m aware they all, without exception, went commercial. One reason for this, iirc, was abuse of the sharing idea : users were sharing illegal/copyright material.
If you can trust their servers, I would imagine the paid-for product represents a fair $/Mb method of backing-up data, second only, imo to a removeable hard-drive caddy system. The uploading and managing of your files is done through their software and does not need an separate FTP client.

Tried some of the links to ‘free’ OLS in MUSAB’s 2nd post.

Kturn : dead link
StreamLoad : has a free trial, but…
BTInet : fine, though the 50Mb has become 25Mb. I signed up for this one. BookBox Lady : might be what you’ve been looking for since your last one went the way of Mammon.
My Secure Files is worth a second look. Uses file compression and encryption. The commercial version is a ‘real’ professional iteration of OLS.

Hi Big Al
You sure got a knack for starting up or reviving a flagging thread……
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Besides, a few megabytes of web page space isn’t what you would call good space for FILE storage and retrieval…

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Oh yes it is! Simply sign up with any ISP (I have 12 or so) offering it (watch out for those 10Mb spaces that are for 5 different e-mail addresses), set it up NOT to allow public access and store your files on it. On your home page put a link to those files, so that users can download them. I have a dozen or so such sites – my own domain space could not hold all the freeware files I make available. You yourself need an FTP client to access the servers – and a good system to record where all those files actually are. After all, they do need updating now and again….

Hi Iona
Sorry to hear of your dilemma. All I can say is, every single one of the ISPs I use has detailed instructions not far from their home/sign-up page on how to access, set up and use the webspace they provide. There are literally hundreds of ISPs. My suggestion would be to ditch those that don’t give you instructions.

Rgds

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Merc – ditching the ISP is not an option – it’s the only one I have.

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….so sign up for a dozen others. There’s plenty of free ones…

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Well, like MerC said, I have a knack for throwing gasoline on a fire, so I’ll jump back in and reply again to Musab to see if he wants to do some checking on one. For about a year, I’ve used a web hosting service for my domain. I DID NOT get my domain name from them – remember that (I registered the domain several years ago through Network Solutions). The reason I started using these people is low price, unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. But, like Mark said, you get what you pay for ($4.95 per month USD)!!!

I use my domain completely for “personal” use, mostly for storage of family pictures and such and I had exceeded the 50 meg space limit of my previous host. HostOnce is in UK and Australia, so I don’t really know where my “server” hardware is. If you do some searching around the web for “reviews” of web host services, you’ll find some pretty negative comments about HostOnce, so it’s buyer beware. My personal experience is that their technical support is horrible (if you need it) and I have on a number of occasions needed their help, especially when they switched me from a Unix server to Windows 2000. Obviously, there’s no telephone support and you have to contact their support from a place on their web page where it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 days before you hear from them.

BUT, this is all the space you need and no limit on bandwidth for a darn near free price! Some of the reviews I read complain about down-time but in my case it’s been minimal. Evidently the claim for a “free domain,” according to some reviewers is a domain name registered to HostOnce, NOT the requesting customer. So there you have it – an example for someone to think about. Now I’m gonna get the heck out of the way before all the machine gun fire starts

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It’s ok… …

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