REIVISED(2/21)Another dot com dies. Too bad. It was great.
Written: Aug 02 '00 (Updated Feb 21 '01)
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The Bottom Line
Was great while it lasted. Now's it's gone like many other dot coms.
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(REVISED Feb 21st)
Like many dot com companies, Driveway will be gone on March 5th. I used Driveway to store a lot of my documents. Sigh. Now, I guess I'll have to move them to X-drive or Freedrive. Here is a copy of the email I received yesterday:
Dear Driveway user,
PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE MESSAGE. IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE FILES THAT YOU STORE ON DRIVEWAY.
As of March 5th, 2001, Driveway will discontinue all Driveway.com file sharing and storage services. We have appreciated your support and use of Driveway. Effective immediately, Driveway is no longer accepting new user registrations, file uploads or purchases of additional space. After March 5th, 2001, you will no longer be able to access any files stored at Driveway.com.
To make sure you continue to have global access to the data in your Driveway account, Driveway recommends that you sign up for a FreeDrive account. For file transfer, download the data in your Driveway account to your desktop. Then, use FreeDrive's FD Desktop feature to easily drag and drop your
Driveway files from your computer to FreeDrive.
FreeDrive is the largest online file storage service with over 12 million members. In addition to 50 MB of Free space, FreeDrive also offers Chat, CD Burning, Photo Albums, and more. Just click the link below to sign up:
http://www.freedrive.com
Again, we thank you for your support of Driveway. Also, please note that in accordance with our privacy policy, all user identity information and files stored on the Driveway.com web site will be deleted once services are
discontinued. If you would like to read more about our service terms and conditions, all of which are subject to the contents of this message, please access them on our corporate web site: http://corp.driveway.com/corp/prod/terms.html
Driveway URL: http://www.driveway.com
Sincerely,
The Driveway Team
Driveway.com is like most other free online storage services out there. They allow users initially 25 MB of free disk space. You can get up to a maximum of 100MB by one of two ways:
-submitting very short surveys (3 in all, 10MB each)
-sharing your files with others (2 MB for each referral, up to max of 40MB)
And, of course, you can buy more space. But with all the free online storage out there, who will?
I won't go much into the details of online storage as a lot of others will discuss that. I will only give out the advantages and disadvantages of driveway.com.
First of all, compared to many other online storage, I find that driveway.com is much faster in uploads and downloads. Maybe it's because I've recently changed to a cable modem that I noticed the upload and download times were much faster than that of the competitors. When you have a faster access, you would hope that your uploads/downloads speed up. That doesn't necessarily mean so with other online storage.
Second, when you upload files to driveway.com, there is a corresponding icon to distinguish its type. What I like about that is that it is much easier to find the file that you're looking for. Also, any jpg files are also shown as a small thumbnail so that you can see the actual picture (although you may have to squint). As I use it partly for uploading pictures, it is great.
Third, because the files can be shared, driveway.com provides a log of files and users that last accessed them. This is especially important for those that share a work file that needs to be updated.
Fourth, driveway.com also provides a drag and drop link functionality. You can set up your browser to accept a link from whatever web page you are on to be saved to your driveway.com. They will prompt for a login and then it will be saved. No more waiting for a web page to be saved on hard disk.
Fifth, driveway allows multiple file uploads. It's nice to download more than one file at a time. Other online storage has this feature but it's nice to have it at driveway.
Sixth, when uploading files, driveway will pop up a window that shows the progress of the upload, something that many other online storage does not have. It's nice to be able to see how fast the uploading is going rather than having to wait in vain, not knowing if the file is being uploaded or not (a major frustration I had with myplay.com not to mention how long it took).
One disadvantage of driveway.com is that sometimes I have problems downloading or uploading files. Maybe it could be that its servers are swamped due to the users logged on. And of course, because it's accessible via the web, anyone who somehow has access to your password (or can hack) can access your account. So, I wouldn't upload sensitive or private information that you are uncomfortable with others viewing.
But, for me, the one thing I like most is the speed of the uploads and downloads.
Recommended:
Yes
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maceyr
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