Grab your 25 Gigabytes of Box.com online storage right now

With cloud storage being offered by many companies, it often boils down to a person's history with a specific company and the features set that becomes available after sign up. It is obviously a lot easier and comfortable to add online storage packs or services to an existing account, than to sign up at a new hosting company. Sometimes though, the features that a company is offering may make all the differences in the world.

When you look at storage space that you get when you sign up, you will notice that most companies provide you with 2 to 7 Gigabytes of free storage for your data. And box.com was not really an exception to that rule with the 5 Gigabyte that it provided users who signed up for a free account with.

The company is currently hosting a promotion that will get you 25 Gigabytes of free web storage instead of the 5 Gigabytes that you usually get. That's a strong argument for opening an account at the service, considering that the majority of competing cloud hosting providers do not offer that much storage. Old Microsoft SkyDrive customers get the same amount, but that is about it.

The account is for a single user only, has a file size limit of 100 Megabytes per file, supports mobile app access and simple sharing and collaboration. As far as mobile access goes, you get Box versions of Android phones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and Windows phone. The phone apps allow you to upload, view and share contents using the smartphone.

You can sign up for the free 25 Gigabyte plan on this promo page. Please note that the offer is only available to new users of Box.com, and that it is only available for non-commercial use.

To sign up simply enter a valid email address and password into the form on the page, and load the confirmation link that is sent to that email address once you click on the continue page. Once you have done that you are automatically logged into your account on the Box.com website where a short introduction is displayed on the screen.

 

Please note that syncing applications for desktop operating systems are not available for free users of the service. While you can use mobile apps and the web interface to upload files, you can't synchronize files from your desktop PC with the cloud storage. That's a serious limitation that makes the service less attractive to users than comparable services that offer free syncing clients. If you just need lots of online storage and do not mind to upload the data from within your web browser, mobile apps or application add-ons, then it is definitely a service to look out for. If syncing is important to you, it is not a service that you can use in this regard.

You could however create the account and let it sit for a while until the operators of the service start offering free synchronization clients. You can alternatively use a third party solution like Gladinet to integrate the storage space firmly into the operating system.

Update: While the apps page is highlighting that desktop syncing software is only available for paid accounts, you can actually get Box Sync for Windows or Mac right from the My Account > Get Box Sync page.

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