4Shared

The primary headquarters of 4shared appears to be in Kiev, Ukraine

This service, in my opinion, is dying. This service needs an urgent change of its business model, otherwise, it will die.

Since I discovered 4Shared desktop the site has become really usable! In addition I no longer need to wait to download, and if I have too many files in uploader/downloader I can ensure to transfer one after another without having a touch anything!

Can also add files by URL.

Is the most direct and rapid management of folders / files, but to enjoy the application first import what you want to load on your account.

Just like Mediafire desktop/express or Mega desktop, you'll enjoy "extras" usually reserved for premium users!

I never had any problems with this application, in addition there is shell integration!

4shared is my favourite cloud storage service by far. They're kind of an underdog, although I have read that by pure numbers, they're among the largest in the world. Judging by the user reactions on their blogs and Facebook page, I assume this is because they are particularly popular in non-English-speaking regions.

First of all, you get a lot of space. 15 GB for free blows most other services out of the water right there already. They are generally very free-user-friendly, not only for your own account, but for downloading files from others as well. Apart from a 20-second wait before downloading each file, there are no transfer limitations, the servers are fast (or as fast as I could want with my 5 MBps downstream) and reliable, and the file size limit is a generous 2 GB. That's all very awesome! :)

The interface is quite nice and advanced as well. It looks like a regular Explorer/file manager view. You can sort and move and drag and drop to your heart's content. There are a lot of settings and features: you can enter descriptions for files, control their visibility and access, replace files without changing their links, zip and unzip files right from within the account, open up folders for guest uploads, and even register a subdomain *.4shared.com for files and folders of your choosing, as long as the subdomain is still available! I think all these are extremely cool features, that you could search far and wide for at other services, even paid ones.

For audio and video files, 4shared automatically creates low-resolution copies that you can stream directly from the download page without downloading the original files. Guest downloaders can also watch and listen to these without going through the 20-second wait, and you are provided with embed-codes to use them on other websites.

You can also get the 4shared Desktop application to facilitate parallel and resumable up- and downloads, the 4Sync application for Dropbox-like functionality (it sets up a special folder on all of your PCs, and everything you save there is automatically synced to your 4shared account and all other computers you install 4Sync to), as well as applications for mobile platforms.

In contrast to comparable services, the people at 4shared seem to be continuously working on new features, and provide most of them for free. I still regularly discover new cool stuff that I didn't know about, such as that a failed upload was actually kept in an Incomplete subfolder with the remark "incomplete (26%)", from which I could resume the upload. With every new thing I discover I find it more surprising that everyone is talking about Dropbox, SkyDrive and iCloud, but not 4shared, which just offers 10 times more features than all of the others combined. You should definitely give it a try.

Using their 4Shared Desktop (Windows, Linux, Mac) you can Sync folders between as many computers as you need. Now that Microsoft has announced that Live Mesh Beta is going away (March 2011) and its replacement is not available for Windows XP, this is a definite alternative that works great and gives you more space. The 30 second wait for downloads is for downloading from shared folders only. If you're logged into your own account there is no waiting. In addition, if you like toolbars they offer one that ties you directly to your account. Bottom line: more space than Live Mesh, Sync, and sharing files/folders make this a viable alternative to Windows Live Mesh that's worth a closer look.