Online file sharing provides a great way to share files from anywhere to anywhere with an Internet connection without the hassle of router port forwarding and hard drive sharing.

This makes Internet file sharing ideal for even the least technical user.

There are many companies offering ways of sharing files over the internet, many offer accounts of around 2gb for free.

How Does Online File Sharing Work?

• You create an account with your chosen service.
• Download and Install the software.
• Login to your account, this will then create a folder for you (usually in My Documents)
• Anything you copy into this folder will be synchronized with the services central folder as above.
• Now download the software onto any other computers and login using the same account as the original computer, this will then create another shared folder.
• You could also create another account and choose to share folders with another account if you don’t wish everything to be shared.

Once your sharing is in place, if you copy a new file, amend a file or delete a file in the shared folder the changes will then be replicated to the services central folder and then to any other computers sharing that particular folder.

This type of service takes FTP and older style file sharing to a whole new level, putting a once very difficult way of working in the hands of every body.

In addition to this you in effect have 3 copies of a file so if one of the computers hard drive fails it’s just a question of downloading the software on another computer, logging in an letting the files download automatically for you.

As with any service of this type, it’s only as good as its weakest link so if you work with a lot of files make sure you have a reasonably fast internet connection to make the most of it.

There are lots of companies offering ways of sharing files over the web, and the best advice I can give is to try out several of them to find the one that’s right for you as although they in effect offer the same type of service there are many different ways of achieving this, such as solely storing files online or as above storing files locally and syncing with a central location.

Many offer a trial service or free cut down service which is all you need to decide what’s right for you.

From our own point of view we have found this type of service to be real godsend, not only does it mean not having to transfer files via USB, which can easily get lost or via FTP, but you can actually see the latest versions of files at all times.

Remember to use good secure passwords all online file sharing, using easy to guess or common passwords is the number one way to get your accounts hacked, be password safe and reduce the risk.

If you need to backup your computers files but not sure what to backup, find out more from our backup pages where we cover everything from My Document to Internet Favorites to Email.

computer adviser online file sharing article