We are pleased to share a few new changes we have made to our service, improved menu navigation and enhanced mode defaults! The changes come at no charge and are part of our commitment to continually update our service to meet your needs.

Improved Menu Navigation

We have promoted our 'My Files' function to the top of the navigation bar. Previously it was a bit hard to find. This makes it much easier to find and view your file transfer activity.

New enhanced mode defaults

Just like our classic mode, the enhanced mode will now allow for defaults to be set for email notifications. You can set the Subject line to anything you wish, and no longer have to retype your desired subject line each time.

Another added feature is the ability to have the "To:" field remember the email address of the last notification sent. When this default is set, you won't have to try to remember or retype the email address of the last person you sent a file to, it will already be there!

The recent U.S. federal shutdown of MegaUpload has displaced a large number of file sharers. For those looking for alternative ways to share files online, it is important to know about the characteristics of legal file sharing services like SendThisFile.

The following is a list of attributes typical of legal file sharing services:

1. Users Pay-to-Play
Since the whole point of piracy is to get something for nothing, services requiring users to pay for their bandwidth sharing provides a strong economic incentive against piracy.

2. Responds to DMCA takedowns
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) contains a section called the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) which criminalizes copyright infringement on the Internet. Any company that does not respond to DMCA takedowns is simply not complying with the law.

3. Files sharing scope is limited
By default, lawful services seek to protect files spiraling out of the sharers control, and are not intended to be accessed by an unlimited number of users. SendThisFile asks that you enter the email address of the person with whom you wish to share files. We don't host files long-term either, so files are securely deleted from our system after sharing.

4. Located in lawful countries
Fileservers and headquarters of the companies you choose to do business with should be located in countries that reciprocate the laws and values for copyrighted work. SendThisFile is headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, and all it's servers are hosted in the United States.

So what should you NOT look for in a file sharing website?

Any 100% Ad-supported website that does not charge users for file sharing, who does not respond to DMCA notices, hosts your files for long term public access, and conducts business from outside the reach of the law should be avoided. Doing business with such a company puts you and your files at risk, while encouraging piracy.

Since 2003, SendThisFile has fit the mold of a legitimate business empowering users to legally share data for business or personal use online.

To learn more about how to send large files click here.

Today is January 18th, SOPA protest day. If you've been online, opened a newspaper, or watched T.V. in the past week you've no doubt heard of SOPA. So why are Internet websites protesting SOPA and why is SOPA such a big deal? Let me explain.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it's Senate cousin the Protect IP Act (PIPA),  are well intentioned, but deeply flawed, bills being debated in Congress. If passed into law, both SOPA and PIPA would give the government unprecedented power to censor the internet and arbitrarily shut down websites without due process.

From Wikipedia:

The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites.

The bill grants law enforcement the ability to completely shut down any website, be it foreign or domestic, using DNS filtering without due process. In short, they could force ISPs (Internet service providers) to block your access to websites and even remove them from search engine results, thus destroying the internet-based business without giving it the opportunity to defend itself.

Why is this bad? As written, SOPA threatens current jobs, hampers innovation by creating undue risk, flouts due process, could disrupt lawful Internet service websites, and violates the privacy of file sharers.

And it gets worse from there.

From SOPA Section 101:

(23) U.S.-DIRECTED SITE- The term `U.S.-directed site' means an Internet site or portion thereof that is used to conduct business directed to residents of the United States, or that otherwise demonstrates the existence of minimum contacts sufficient for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the owner or operator of the Internet site consistent with the Constitution of the United States, based on relevant evidence that may include whether--

(A) the Internet site is used to provide goods or services to users located in the United States;

(B) there is evidence that the Internet site or portion thereof is intended to offer or provide--
(i) such goods and services,
(ii) access to such goods and services, or
(iii) delivery of such goods and services,
to users located in the United States;

(C) the Internet site or portion thereof does not contain reasonable measures to prevent such goods and services from being obtained in or delivered to the United States; and

SOPA is written in such a way that if any legitimate business service (or even your Internet service provider) does not monitor its customer's file transfers for copyright violations, then that service would be complicit in the copyright infringement.

SendThisFile abhors piracy in all its forms and we respect the rights of content owners. However, SendThisFile greatly respects the privacy rights of it's customers and seeks to provide the most convenient, secure, and reliable way to send files online. SOPA would end that.

We strongly encourage our customers to join us in supporting companies, U.S. Representatives, and U.S. Senators that oppose SOPA.

Click here to learn how you can help stop SOPA.

Gmail provides one of the best email services online. It's free, fast, and works well most of the time. However, you will encounter a big problem when you try to send large files with Gmail. Gmail won't send large files. In fact, Gmail limits email attachment file sizes to only 25 megabytes (megs). Try to send any files larger than that and your email will be rejected outright. So if you wish to send files larger than 25 megs, then you are going to need assistance from another service.

That's not all, Gmail won't let you send executable files or corrupted files either (even when the files are compressed or zipped). Here are file types that Gmail does not support: ade, adp, bat, chm, cmd, com, cpl, exe, hta, ins, isp, jse, lib, mde, msc, msp, mst, pif, scr, sct, shb, sys, vb, vbe, vbs, vxd, wsc, wsf, and wsh.

SendThisFile is here to help.

You can use SendThisFile, for free, to send large email attachments of any size. You can even send files larger than 2 Gigabytes! We won't limit the file sizes you send and you can send any file type you wish, all without special software or training.

Here's how it works.

1. Enter the email address of where you want your file to go
2. Drag and drop your file(s) into the browser window

That's it! Your files are then uploaded to our file server and an email is sent with a download link. The entire process is protected with 128-bit encryption security and files are securely deleted when you're finished.

SendThisFile is fast, flexible, and easy to use. Click here to try it for free!

Comparing Managed File Transfer services can be tricky. Many sites don't have the same feature pairings or price points. Some sites list every minor attribute and some hardly list any.

Here is how SendThisFile bests the competition:

1. No account is needed for downloads
SendThisFile is not a walled garden. When you send large files with us, your recipient does not need to have an account with us to download the file. It's simple, to get the file they simply click the download link on the download page you emailed them.

2. All downloads are full speed
File downloads from SendThisFile are always sent fast. Your recipients will never wait in line, and they are never throttled.

3. Every plan gets a FileBox
A FileBox is a powerful way to receive large files. Each FileBox provided by SendThisFile has a unique URL (e.g., SendThisFile.com/fileboxname). Simply share your FileBox link to begin receiving large files.

4. You can send files larger than 2 gigabytes (2GB)
Our new enhanced view runs a powerful Java applet in your web browser that allows you to send files larger than 2 GB. There is no special software needed and you never leave the browser. Java is cross-platform, very stable, and is pre-loaded on nearly every operating system. You will be hard pressed to find another service that lets you send large files through your web browser.

5. Regulatory Compliance
We continually meet the most stringent governtment regulations and industry certifications. SendThisFile is compliant with HIPAA, SAS 70 Type II, PCI DSS, FIPS 140-2, and more. Fortune 500 businesses, banks, and law firms routinely trust our services to safeguard their data while in transit. Regulatory compliance is difficult to attain. If a service provider does't mention a certification or compliance, you can be sure that they don't have it.

On behalf of everyone here at SendThisFile, I would like to thank all of our devoted SendThisFile users for a great 2011!

Thanks to your support we have been able to keep growing SendThisFile with exciting additions such as a brand new look, Facebook integration, a new Outlook plug-in, a much improved international character handling support for filenames (a.k.a., UTF-8), further security improvements, and our great new 'Enhanced' file sending view that allows drag-and-drop, resume interrupted transfers, auto-zip of files, folder sending, and so much more!

We hope that you've had a very prosperous and productive year, and we look forward to being your choice to send large files in 2012.

Happy New Year!
Aaron Freeman, CEO & Founder

Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays to you and yours
from the entire SendThisFile team.

The first problem visitors encounter is the burdensome mental calculus of creating new account sign-in credentials that must remembered. Should you use an old password from another online service or create an unique password just for this website?

Using duplicate passwords for all your websites is a common bad practice that saves a lot of time but creates huge security risks. What if a password needs to be changed for another website? Must I then change all of my passwords too? Also, what if another website has weak security and my password is stolen? This could risk exposing every online service you use. As you can see, there are many downsides to this approach.
Let's say you do the secure thing and create a new password. That's good, but unfortunately there's still more work to do.

A new user must also authenticate their email address. Websites must verify that your identity is correct and that your email address was not mistyped. This typically means that you must open your email client, go to your inbox (or spam folder) find the email, and click a confirmation link. Once clicked, you have proven your identity and are now able to sign-in. Did I mention that after all this effort you still have not used the service?

SendThisFile understands that this can be a big frustration for first-time users and have been looking to streamline the experience. We are happy to announce we have implemented one-click Facebook registration.

It turns out that Facebook offers a very compelling solution. By using your existing Facebook account we have eliminated both the password creation headache and email authentication steps. This greatly reduces the amount of time and effort it takes users to start using our service.

There are currently over 800 million active Facebook users worldwide, so the odds are good that if you are visiting SendThisFile.com for the first time that you also have a Facebook account. Any Facebook visitors can now sign-up for SendThisFile with just one click using a 'Register with Facebook' button. You can think of it as a free 'single-sign-on' service managed by Facebook.

Don't worry though, we allow you to change your email address and password later if you choose not to use Facebook as your sign-in anymore.

Facebook also offers two-factor authentication security called 'Login Approvals.' This means that Facebook will text you a security code to confirm a new website registration. If you don't desire to manage a bunch of different passwords, this can be a good way to simplify things without sacrificing security, and we recommend this opt-in feature. 'Login Approvals' can be found under your Facebook security settings.

Websites must balance their users need for security and ease-of-use. SendThisFile believes that the FaceBook solution provides a good balance of both.

Continuous improvement takes teamwork (Photo: Rick E. Dick)

Server Upgrade

Systemwide we performed an application server upgrade. This means you now get better UTF-8 support across the entire SendThisFile system, including at the enterprise form, maximum downloads reached form, download page, and more. UTF-8 support means that non-english alphabet and special characters (e.g., Russian text or ampersands) that appear in your filename are preserved when they are uploaded to our servers. Most of our competitors will either delete these characters outright from your filename, or turn them into computer gibberish. So if you send a file via SendThisFile named "кий -%&+.doc", it will stay that way.

Database Optimization

A big undertaking was a recent optimization of our database, which reduced our load factor by over 50%. The result? A snappier UI with quicker page loading, faster transfers, and an overall improvement to the user experience. We even increased security at the SSL layer for even more robust file protection during transfers.

Our Commitment to You

Being a top tier file transfer company for over 8 years means that you never stop improving and adding value to your service. More reliability, more features, and more security means a better product for our customers.

There is a seemingly endless number of ways to share data; FTP, Web Hosting, free upload sites, file transfer software, IM clients, file storage sites, and many more. Unfortunately the vast majority of these solutions are not practical for day-to-day use for the simple fact that you must force your file recipient to also download, install, configure, and use the same technical software or service you are using. Even if it is an online service they must create an account and sign-in just to receive your file.

It can be presumptuous and even rude to assume that your file recipient would want to take time out of their busy day to learn yet another system, and incorporate additional complexity into their workflow. This is a big reason to why using email to share file download links makes so much sense. Everyone has an email address.

SendThisFile uses your existing email address to send links to your files. If you wish to send large files, the only question you have to ask someone is...

"What's your email address?"