Online storage and file backup service Livedrive has dropped its beta label and it's now charging for service. We first looked at the service back in December, when Livedrive was offering unlimited file storage for free while in beta. Now that the service has officially launched, the company is charging £39.95 per year for 100GB of space or £89.95 for unlimited storage. That's about $57 US and $128 US respectively.

You can certainly find cheaper online backup solutions (Mozy and Carbonite come to mind). But Livedrive offers a few features that you won't find from other services, including integration with Windows Explorer and social features like Facebook integration. And once your files are uploaded to Livedrive's servers, you can access them from any computer with a web browser.

If you signed up during the beta, Livedrive is offering a 20% discount to the first 10,000 beta testers who sign up for paid accounts.

Ten years ago when Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Briefcase, the service provided users with a much-needed place to store their files and documents online. But time marched on, and while other companies offer gigabytes of free storage space, Yahoo! still offers a paltry 30MB of free disc space.

Rather than upgrade the service with a slick new interface or additional storage, Yahoo! has decided to close its Briefcase. The company has posted a message alerting users that Yahoo! Briefcase will close on March 30th.

Yahoo! has posted an information page with instructions for downloading files from the service, but with only 30MB of storage available, I'm guessing most users (all two of them) won't have too many problems retrieving their data.

[via CNet]

It's not hard to find an online service that lets you upload a few hundred megabytes of pictures, music, and movie clips. Some even give you 5 or 50GB. But Oosah is a service that's upping the game. By a lot. Oosah claims that users get 1TB of online storage for free.

There are some limitations. You can only upload videos that are 200MB or smaller, images that are 50MB or less, and MP3 files that are 9MB or less. And you can't upload executable files, office documents, or other files. Just movies, music, and pictures. But Oosah does accept most common media file types. There's also an option to upload media directly from your camera or capture device without copying it to your computer first.

Besides offering an incredible amount of storage space, there are a few other things that set Oosah apart. One of the coolest features is integration with YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Picasa. You can associate Oosah with your other social network/media accounts and manage your media libraries from a central location. Oosah has an incredibly simple file manager that lets you easily drag and drop files from Flickr to Oosah, from Oosah to Facebook, and so on.

Does the service really provide a whole 1TB of storage to every user? Honestly, I can't say. It would take me forever to upload that much data. But if the promise of a huge amount of free storage is a publicity stunt to get people to try to use the service, it worked. And I have to say, I'm impressed.

Right now all Oosah accounts are free. The company says it may eventually create a premium service that offers paying customers even more storage.

One word of warning. When I signed up I had to check a box that said I agreed to Oosah's privacy policy. But there was no clear link to said policy. A quick Google search turned up a list of terms and conditions which also makes mention of a separate privacy policy. But it's nowhere to be found.

[via shankri-la]

Wuala is a social file storage application that we first looked at back in February. At the time, Wuala was in private beta, but starting today anyone can sign up for an account.

Unlike other file storage/sharing services, Wuala doesn't provide you with web space. Rather, your files are encrypted and then stored on the computers of other Wuala users. While this might sound a bit scary, the upshot is that you can store large amounts of data. The more space you allocate for Wuala on your hard drive, the more online space you can access. And your files are duplicated on multiple computers so that you shouldn't have problems accessing your files even if some of the folks in your network have turned their machines off for the night.

Wuala has a desktop client for Windows, Mac, and Linux that you can use to upload and download files. Or you can access a web interface. The service is still in beta, so nobody's promising that all the kinks have been worked out. But as of today, Wuala is in public beta, not private.

Once upon a time there was a company called Streamload that let users upload huge media files to a web site fo sharing with their friends. Eventually Streamload changed its name to MediaMax and offered pretty much the same service. This year the company changed its name again, this time to The Linkup and launched a new business model: a social network based around online file storage and sharing.

Apparently the whole social network thing didn't really pan out, as The Linkup has announced plans to kill the service on August 8th. The company has posted a message on its homepage stating that it will no longer accept new uploads or new accounts. It will also no longer charge current customers. If you've got any media stored at The Linkup, you'll probably want to make sure you've got a backup before August 8th, because at that point the company will delete your files.

According to the note, The Linkup had problems transfering user files from MediaMax. That's kind of an understatement. What actually happened was that the company deleted nearly half of its user files. Many were recoverable, but some were not.

Did you use The Linkup, MediaMax or Streamload? What was your experience like? Will you miss this service or just move on to other online storage sites?

[via GigaOm]

Online file hosting and sharing service DivShare has a lot going for it. Users can upload and share pretty much any file, and if you've got media like pictures, documents, audio, or video to share, DivShare has a slick Flash utility for embedding content on your web page. Best of all, unlike other services out there, so far DivShare hasn't put caps on how much online storage space you can use or how much bandwidth users get for file downloads.

All that is changing. DivShare, which has been having trouble making money, and which was put up for sale a while back, has announced plans to institute storage and bandwidth caps. DivShare users with free accounts now get 5GB of storage and 50GB of bandwidth. If you want more you'll have to pay to upgrade your account.

Sure, 5GB is more space than you get from a lot of competing services. But when you're a company that's built its name on unlimited uploads and downloads, any limits are a bit hard for users to swallow. According to the DivShare Blog, fewer than 10% of the service's users are currently exceeding the limits, so most users will not need to upgrade. And users who have already exceeded the limits will not have files deleted, but they will have to delete some files before they can upload any more (or you know, create a new account). In theory, the move will make the service more reliable for the vast majority of users who don't come close to approaching the new limits. But something tells us that won't mean much to users who have been told to delete files.

[via CyberNet]

Online storage service Ewedrive is shutting down and the developers are focusing their time on Desktop on Demand, an online desktop application instead. And that got us thinking. Are online desktops, or so-called "web operating systems" the new online storage?

Sure, we've been a bit down on WebOSes in the past. They sort of jumped the shark for us when companies started creating web browsers that you could access from... your web browser. But if you're creating a service that lets people store their files online, the user interface is key. The best online storage solutions already let users drag and drop files from their computer, do batch uploads, and share files with other users. Why not add a few extra applications like media players and Office documents?

After all, Desktop on Demand does everything Ewedrive did, and more. You still get 1GB of free storage space, and you can pay if you need more. If you don't want to use a web-based instant messaging application while you're there, that's fine. You don't have to. But it's nice to have the option.

[via Frantic Industries]

When we first looked at DigitalBucket last year, we told you that the service was about to emerge from beta. We were wrong. The online file storage service is still in beta, but that's a good thing. It means you can continue to use DigitalBucket for free. Eventually the company will start charging for service with plans ranging from $15 per year for 1GB of online storage space to $149 per year for 25GB.

In the meantime, DigitalBucket has continued adding features that make the web-based file storage site a lot more Windows-like. For instance, you can now open multiple documents in multiple windows. And you can use more online services to edit those documents. So if you've uploaded an image, you can edit it using Snipshot or Picnik and save it to your DigitalBucket account. You can also edit Office documents using Zoho.

There's also a new uploader that lets you upload multiple files while tracking their progress. And you can upload files from the internet just by entering a URL. For developers, DigitalBucket has released an API, so we may see even more features coming soon.

Last month we discovered ADrive, a free online storage service that could be everything you've ever dreamed about, if your dreams are kind of dull. Basically, the service offers a huge amount of storage space for free. But the interface was a bit less than dreamy. For starters, you couldn't upload complete directories. The only way to upload multiple files was to select them manually.

ADrive recently launched an updated uploader that does let you transfer entire directories with just the click of a mouse. But it's still kind of problematic, because it turns out that once you start a transfer, you can't use your web browser to do anything else until the transfer is finished (or you cancel the transfer, whichever comes first).

We're still waiting for a desktop based uploader. And we'd love to see a way to batch download files, but ADrive isn't meant for performing daily backups of your important data. It's really more of a way to store files online and access them from any computer. So you can't really judge it the same way you would an online backup site like Mozy or Carbonite.

[Thanks Tim!]

Ever since Google catapulted itself into the email arena by offering way more online storage space for email than any of its competitors, rumors have been flying that Google was going to find another user for all that server space: online data storage. In fact, some folks have been crafty enough to turn GMail's 5+ GB of storage into a virtual online hard drive. But the official Google hard drive or GDrive has remained in the realm of speculation.

Now the Wall Street Journal reports that a GDrive is coming, although it's not clear exactly what the service will actually be called. Apparently for a while the project was called simply "my stuff."

If the Journal is correct, the new service will let users store photos, music, movies, Office documents and other media online where they can be accessed from any computer. Google will probably offer a certain amount of storage for free and then charge for more space, which shouldn't come as any surprise because that's exactly what the company is doing with its PicasaWeb/email plan. And it's exactly what all of the other companies in this space, like Box.net or Omnidrive do.

But that raises an interesting point. It doesn't sound like Google is going to offer anything that you can't already get today from an existing service. The only thing that really makes the mythical GDrive special is that it would be coming from Google, which means that many people who have never heard of Box.net might actually use it. So don't be surprised if Google launches its new online storage service and you're less than impressed with the amount of free space you get. On the other hand, Google is also well positioned to squash the competition by offering a ridiculous amount of free storage, integration with Google Docs, and other services that could make the GDrive hard to beat.

Box.net is transforming from a service that lets you store your files to a service that lets you store, edit, manipulate, and share your files. That doesn't mean Box.net is getting into the online office/image editing/blogging business. Instead, the company is launching OpenBox, a platform that lets web app developers tie their services into Box.net.

From a user perspective, what this means is you can upload images, text documents, spreadsheets, or other files to Box.net. Then you can click on those documents to share, download, or email them. But you can also open an image using Picnik's online image editor, or send a document as a fax using eFax.

Right now there are just a few services available, including Zoho, ThinkFree, Autodesk, Scribd, Snipshot, Zazzle, Twitter, Echosign, Picnik and eFax. But thanks to open platformy-goodness, we suspect Box.net will add a ton of services soon.

A free Box.net account nets you 1GB of online storage space. You can also get 5GB or 15GB for a monthly or annual subscription fee.

[via WebWare]

While it's nice that Microsoft is starting to offer web-based services like the ability to store and share files online, Windows Live SkyDrive launched earlier this year with an anemic 500MB storage limit per user. But when you can get 5GB of free space from AOL's Xdrive or 25GB of space for media files from MediaMax, half a gig just doesn't cut it.

So what does Microsoft do? They increase the limit to 1GB. Gee, thanks.

The SkyDrive team has announced a few other updates that do look useful. For example you can subscribe to an RSS feed for public folders. Every time a new file is uploaded you'll get an update. You can also see which user uploaded a specific file to a shared SkyDrive. And you can add Windows Live friends to your SkyDrive contacts list without sending them an e-mail or instant messaging them through Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger.

As for the 1GB file size, we suppose it's a start. But we'd like to see more from a company that's in a brutal contest with Google for internet dominance.

Online storage sites are a dime a dozen these days. In fact, many offer several gigs of storage for free. Digital Bucket isn't free, or at least it won't be when it exits beta. But it does offer a few nice features.

Digital Bucket's interface is almost identical to the basic Windows File Explorer. Once you upload files, you can drag and drop, copy and paste, rename, zip, or unzip them.

You can also share files with other user and set file permissions limiting access to specific users. This could come in handy if you're working on a collaborative project or want to share access to certain documents with colleagues or clients.

Digital Bucket also works with Zoho, which means you can view and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. There are also online music and video players and a photo album organizer and viewer.

The service is set to emerge from beta next week, at which point you'll be able to choose from several tiers of membership starting at $15 per year for 1GB of storage and a limited feature set. For $149 per year, you get 25GB, larger file size limits, and more features.

[via WebWare]