For the last year, I’ve made good use of Dropbox. For those who don’t know, it’s a pretty awesome cloud-based file storage service that gives you the ability to upload/download/share files. You can get a free account for 2GB and increase it by 250MB at a time for each friend you refer to the service up to 8GB. Even more useful is that you can download native Dropbox apps for both Windows and OS X turning it into a share folder within the OS to allow easy drag-n-drop action. (Mobile apps for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry are available too.)
On the other side of the fence is Box.net. I’ll be honest and admit I haven’t used this service at all (though I just finished signing up for an account). I’ve heard of it before, but only now after some plan upgrades did they catch my interest. You see, the old Box.net freebie plan topped out at 1GB. The new plan has expanded considerably to 5GB! Business accounts also got a healthy kick. Instead of costing $15 per user, companies can now get a business account with a starting point of 500GB!
The only downside to Box.net’s new consumer-focused plans is the lack of a drag-n-drop option — you have to sign in to the website to upload/download files. A small inconvenience especially to users who’ve become accustomed to the awesome feature built into all versions of Dropbox. For some however, the 5GB right out of the gate will more than make up for the difference. Though if Box.net keeps up this impressive feat of pro-consumer updates, Dropbox may just have a fight on their hands.
