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Easy alternative to email for sending files?

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JavaJones:
Recently in this thread the subject of sending files through email came up and all the issues that entails. It got me wondering again whether there really is a good, easy solution for sending files that is comparable to email in its simplicity and ease of use. So many people use email for this purpose because the functionality is there and it's easy to use and familiar. Yet it is terribly inefficient and riddled with problems - from lack of download resume capability (in most cases) to the 30+% bloating of file size - email and the standard POP email protocol just wasn't built with file sending in mind.

This also makes me wonder why a more efficient encoding method such as yEnc hasn't been adopted for email as it has for news protocol. Of course this would take client support, but I don't think that is a big deal. The sooner the better.

Anyone know of any alternatives? I don't consider rapidshare or similar systems to really be comparable. First of all they're not direct, person-to-person, and generally not secure because of that. Sure your email data passes through several servers via email anyway, but it's transient, it doesn't usually sit there just waiting for someone to look at it. There are also more steps involved with web-based systems like that and few of them have dedicated desktop applications for streamlining. P2P systems also for the most part do not work that easily for specific individual file transfer. IM is too unreliable. Something like HFS works great IMO - even for non-tech people - but they need to be convinced to use it and when email "just works", why would they bother? Nevermind that email doesn't "just work" all that well, especially for the poor ISP's running the servers. But of course the average user doesn't really think about that.

Anyway, thoughts, ideas, alternatives?

- Oshyan

kimmchii:
try Pando.

JavaJones:
Yeah, I've seen Pando, haven't tried. But it's still yet another app people have to download.

Ideally this solution would be an extension of something people already have access to. That's why HFS is so cool. Only the sender needs to have it, although it does mean they need to keep their system up until the download is finished unfortunately. Pando does solve that at least.

I don't know, Pando seems like a decent alternative, but I'm just hesitant to recommend any solution that requires *everyone* involved to get a new piece of software. If it's just the sender I think that's ok - preferable to just the recipient, and certainly preferable to *bott* sender and recipient.

A good suggestion though, and thank you. :)

- Oshyan

brotherS:
try Pando.
-kimmchii (October 09, 2006, 05:28 PM)
--- End quote ---
http://www.pando.com/how_it_works explains how it works, should be good for when you often send files.

http://www.sendspace.com is a simple web-based solution. I need to send files > 1 MB only every 2 weeks or so, so that service is good (and easy) enough for me.

tinjaw:
Put the file on a webserver and email them the URL.

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