Will you host your files on the new Mega(upload) site?
After having been teased about the new Mega(upload) website for months it seems that a selection of high profile journalists have received access before anyone else. I do not blame the operators for going down the route even though I dislike the edge that these journalists and sites get because of it.
Techcrunch has released a bunch of information about the new Mega site. Site development seems to have not progressed as hoped as several of the features do not seem functional yet. What we do know is the following:
- Free users get 50 Gigabyte of free storage that they can use t o upload data to.
- There are three paid account options called Pro I, II and III that differ in price, bandwidth and storage.
- Pro I costs $9.99 per month and provides users with access to 500 Gigabyte of storage and 1 Terabyte of raffic
- Pro II costs $19.99 per month and provides users with access to 2000 Gigabyte of storage and 4 Terabyte of raffic
- Pro III costs $29.99 per month and provides users with access to 4000 Gigabyte of storage and 8 Terabyte of traffic
Techcrunch failed to mention if free account users are limited when it comes to bandwidth. It is highly likely that they are and that it is well below the 1 Terabyte mark of the Pro 1 account.
As far as functionality goes, the new Mega supports file uploads and downloads, the automatic encryption of all data and that seems to be about it right now. While you see contact options on the screenshots over at Techrcunch the feature itself is not functional yet according to the article. The operators have big plans for the service that include document editing, direct user to user file sharing or instant messaging.
50 Gigabyte of storage seems a lot when you compare it to file syncing services such as Dropbox, SkyDrive or Google Drive but it is not unheard of in the file hosting industry. Mediafire is for instance also making available 50 Gigabyte of free storage to its users while Rapidshare claims to offer unlimited storage to its users.
The big question is however if you trust the new Mega and its operators enough to host your files on their servers. It is very likely that the same authorities that brought down Megaupload are monitoring the new Mega with eagle eyes to see how it handles copyright infringement on site. At the very least it is recommended to have the files available in another backup location as a fall back if the service is taken down again.
What about you? Will you make use of the service once it goes live for everyone? I will definitely take a look to get a sneak peak of what it has to offer but I'm pretty happy with the Dropbox / Skydrive combo that I'm using currently.
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— All of my data is backed up to a location that only I have access to and control over (pardon the grammar). I trust no one to protect it like I do.
— For me, cloud storage is used only as a convenience for sharing data or for my accessing that data without having to run my own server, which is so affordable now, that I do that, too.
— Want to be sure that over-hyped privacy is maintained? Keep your data to yourself.
— Doing something illegal and want to put evidence to that fact in the cloud, encrypted, proxied, false-named or not, hire a good lawyer , stock up on reading material to last 5-to-10-to-eleventeen years. You’ll need and deserve it.
— Mega, MediaFire, whomever: It’s free. Sign-up to reserve the space for if/when you want it. No brainer.
Kim DotCom was railroaded and abused by the same institutions that are supposed to be protecting us all. Was there ever illegal content on his servers? Of course, there was. Did he ever know or have reason to believe that there was? Of course he did. However, in this specific case, he acted completely legally, even cooperatively. His treatment, especially by the U.S. DOJ, is outrageous. Are there any innocents offering their (my) sage opinions here? Of course there aren’t.
If for no other reason, I’m signing up in protest DotCom’s treatment. You know the old saying that goes something like, “…. when they come for you, who will be there to speak out?”
@Martin – Marketing and business considerations aside, of course, journalists should get first crack, assuming they are better informed than the general population about the subject(s) they are covering. Equal does not always mean the same, access to information included. Afterall, the info/access isn’t being used to buy stocks or to prepare us for a flood.
Looking into this a little bit more it looks like the service is aimed at legitimate users and not career pirates. The encryption allows a user to store whatever they want, legal or not, and keeps Mega from being liable. Hashing a db won’t be possible so files won’t mysteriously disappear. There’s no incentive program for links and it looks to punish those who publish public links to infringing content.
Their privacy policy basically states “I Kim am not going to prison for you pirates again but I still want your money. Take heed we are logging users and will sell you out if necessary just like ALL other cloud services. Unlike those other services, we’re telling you in plain English instead of confusing legal jargon. Use tor, a fake email address, use prepaid CC cards and strip identifying metadata from all content if you plan on using this service for shady purposes, enjoy.”
At worst this will be used like a sneaker net with the ability to transfer files from one Mega user to another without needing to publish links.
Please correct me if I’ve misinterpreted something.
Personally, I’d feel more safe on the new Mega than any other cloud provider.
ok, somehow i’m not able to reply to anybody, so here it goes:
i think it’s funny how most of the comments here are so critical regarding cloud storage. i thought i’d be in the minority with my point of view on a tech-site like this, but it seems i was wrong in that assumption.
like i said, i do have a dropbox-acc, but since the lousy 2,x gb aren’t good for much, i used it solely to make files available on my phone, or on other phones which i wanted to test in-store without the possibility to change the sd card. i think i used the service two and a half times, sooo…
but this article got me thinking about this whole backup- and data-security-thing and i’m currently working out a masterplan to save my digital valuables for future mankind.
i think i’ll get a second hdd for offsite backup, but since mediafire also offers 50gb for free, maybe i split my data between these two services. it will take an eternity to upload 100gb with my connection, but once it’s done, it could be quite nice to know your stuff is safe(-er than before). it all depends on how the software/frontend works, but i think i’ll at least give it a try.
so thanks for the article, it’s always nice to broaden ones horizon! :)
ps: only work and no play, @martin? thank you for considering my input, but don’t forget to watch the _t_raffic! have a nice one! ^^
Then From Where You Came to know the Pricing and Other details ? and How Long I have to Wait For Creating An account on Mega.
The announcement says it is opening on January 19 so stay tuned. The pricing details have been posted on Techcrunch.
hello Martin , Can you Pleasse give me a link to the mega file hosting site!!
i had opened this url http://kim.com/mega/ , but it seems a preview only , no option to register or log-in
It is opening today so there is no link for registration yet.
Hey,
Heck no, I will not use their site for anything important. No way am I trusting a pirate site with my stuff. Don’t be fooled, that’s exactly what it is.
But yeah 50GB is no where near enough for me needs either.
Love crashplan myself! Been using for about 4 months. Going to take me awhile to upload everything. About 18.8208008 terabytes spread across 4 computers.
After four months I’m around the 5% mark. LOL Going to take forever to upload. Don’t feel like spending crash to buy the drive from them either. Even that wold take 18 times since the biggest drive they offer is only 1TB.
Anyways, yea I would 100% not and don’t trust Mega. Hell no, in fact!
cya,
Will
have a look at torrentfreak’s expose of the service’s shocking lack of privacy. sign up for it after that and you are clearly not worried about privacy. they track your IP addresses FFS! laughable.
I only have an ordinary ADSL broadband connection. Here in the UK that means I might – at best – get a fraction of the online speed I’m paying for.
With all ‘cloud’ storage services, it isn’t long before I find out what the A in ADSL actually stands for. It stands for forget it – get a bigger USB HDD.
By definition, unless you take advantage of the deals offered by some companies to allow you to send a hard drive full of stuff to them for copying to your cloud account, almost no one can save ALL their stuff to the cloud. I have a TB and a half of stuff. It would take years to get it up to the cloud at 150KB/sec or whatever my upload speed is at 3Mb/sec DSLExtreme speeds.
50GB on the other hand is a nice way to save your most critical stuff off site. And by definition your offsite storage should never be your ONLY backup, so if the site goes down, you should be prepared for that. Keep your stuff in multiple locations on and offsite, including at least two cloud storage sites if you don’t have any other offsite storage (such as a safe deposit box).
BTW, another site says that the $9.99 rate gets you TWO TB of bandwidth, not one. Might want to check that since it seems to make sense since the other two rates are double the previous rate, i.e., 4TB and 8TB. The free account probably gets the 1TB limit.
Richard, the Pro I account has a 1 TB bandwidth limit as you can see here on the official website.
https://mega.co.nz/#pro
ERRATUM, so sorry :
– “I dislike what I think to perceive of Kim Dotcom”
– “For instance I do use Box.com”
At this time I have no intention of using this Mega service. I do say at this time because I am still not aware of the “true truth” about the Megaupload odyssey. Should it turn out to be at the advantage of the founder that would remain a very subjective very little business oriented fact : I dislike whey I think to perceive of Kim Dotcom. I know, this is a rather romantic attitude :)
As far as Mega is concerned, I do appreciate what is announced as a total encrypted process. For instance I do use Bow.com but the free plan does not encrypt the transfer, so I have to do the job myself for sensitive data. On another hand, I remain suspicious as to the upload speeds applicable to free accounts.
At this time my cloud storage relies on Box.com (25GB) and on French OVH’s hubiC (Hub in the Cloud), 25GB as well, mainly for media backup. Maybe, who knows, Giga for testing but, frankly, I don’t think so.
Distributed Storage + Encryption = No prying eyes and no keys to the kingdom. On the surface it’s looks to be the best option in the cloud. Time will tell what it all really means.
A Published API = potential for FF plugins and Seedbox like functionality and everything in between.
I don’t know that I’ll sign up tomorrow but I would be a moron not to keep an eye on this. It truly could revolutionize the cloud.
NO, because Kim is a moron and thinks Firefox is outdated.
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/01/mega-arrives-ars-goes-hands-on-with-kim-dotcoms-cloud-storage-site/
http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/mega7.jpg
The Internet is based on the tenets of access from any client, anywhere in the world and Kim the retard violates this.
Most definitely I will not use this service. :)
I never use the cloud to store my documents. I’m tired of having to read the TOS to find out if that horrible clause “we can use your files and their contents”.
Instagram had the unfortunate luck to have their proposed change to add this in discovered; however, many free cloud services have had this right from the start.
And ultimately, why cloud when a home server does the same thing and you have complete control. I know; I can hear the screams about security and that most people have no idea on how to properly setup the own server. Fortunately, I don’t fall into that bucket :)
There is an intangible comfort from having complete control over your data that the cloud just can’t offer.
I would absolutely love to be able to store a copy of my important data in the cloud but the lack of trustworthy client side encryption keeps me from using any cloud services for personal or clients data.
Contrary to popular belief; if you put something in somebody else’s hands it stops really being yours. Excluding the flawed notion of password protection you are at the mercy of the provider who can access your private data anyway should the perceived need arise.
If Mega really works, and the distributed nature of it may allow it to without being stoppable, this will be Mega.
on topic: i’m not really a user of these cloud-thingies, although i do have a (free) dropbox-acc, which i let rot away most of the time.
i think i mentioned my opinion on these kind of things in another article about sd-card slots/ the lack thereof in the nexus4 or something and although i welcome the advancements in cloud services, my opinion hasnt really changed, yet.
maybe (probably?) i’m just not trendy enough, my digital life is just boring as hell, or i simply have the wrong attitude, but for me these serviced don’t have much value.
i’m not a file-herder – still rockin on 250gb of spinning magnet-storage – but still, 50gb wouldnt cut it, if i wanted to use it for offsite backup.
my music alone would surpass this limit in size. add to that 30+gb of photos, gigabytes of software and one or the other dozen of movies, if i wanna be crazy, and all these storage hosters can’t hold a candle to a stupid ol’ harddrive i hide at a friends house.
i know, apples and oranges, but still, for me thats the end of the story, backup-wise.
so either i wait til my life gets more interesting and i see the value in kim&co’s services, or they will, someday, offer, say, 100gb+ for free without stupid limitations.
til then i’ll continue betting on apocalypse-proof offline storage, thank you very much!
(satiric elements added for the entertainment of the reader. and author.)
I’m also not using these services to backup lots of files. I do find it useful to backup a couple of documents and other files for backup purposes but that is about it. I do not have the need yet to push what’s on my PC to the cloud, and even if I would, 50 Gigabyte would not cut it as well as my music collection alone has a size of more than 300 Gigabyte.
Given who’s on his back the entire time, looking to take down everything he does, there’s no way i’m putting anything important up there.
typo here:
There are three paid account options called Pro I, II and II that differ in price, bandwidth and storage.
after ii, there comes iii ;)
also, i wouldnt call it “data”, or “bandwith”, when talking about traffic, but i’m just nitpicking, since we all know what we’re talking about ^^
Thanks, corrected.