In the era of smartphones and modern office technology we deal less with actual paper and handwritten documents and more with digital documents and media files on a daily basis. However, the more digital files there are, the less free space you have on your PC or laptop. This problem of lack of space can be easily solved by using the help of cloud storage. Such services offer you an amount of free space online on their server. Some also allow users to synchronize all their connected files to one account on one device and have cross-platform apps and clients (some claim that they are the most secure). To help you select the best cloud storage we have reviewed the most popular and widely-used services to see what features each of them offer.
Google Drive
An absolute mogul of the Internet and PC technologies, Google has a Google Drive cloud storage which is definitely one of the most widely-used today. Google Drive offers as much as 15 GB of free space, keeps your data secure and is simple to use. You can save files to this cloud storage from your Gmail account, and there’s also a Google Chrome extension called Save to Google Drive that lets you save any file from the browser to your Google Drive account. Through Google Drive you can also open files of various formats (documents and multimedia files), share files, and invite other users to work on mutual projects.
Dropbox
Dropbox offers 2 GB of cloud storage space for its users for free. Dropbox synchronizes the files on all the computers and devices connected to your account (or specific folders of your choice), and you can share files and folders using a link and invite users to collaborate on some files, and restore previous versions of your files (within 30 days). From mobile devices you can access files offline (if you mark them in advance). There’s also a possibility to increase your Dropbox space when you successfully invite users to Dropbox through a referral link.
Box
Box cloud storage provides its users with 10 GB of space and offers file synchronization (full or custom) within devices just like any other cloud service. You can set permissions on the files and folders so that they can only be viewed or edited by the users who are given access to them. Documents can be opened, edited and saved within Box, and that’s why this cloud storage might be very convenient for office workers. In addition to that, Box offers a high level of encryption for stored files.
MEGA
MEGA is a New Zealand-based cloud storage that offers 50 GB of space on the cloud for free, which is actually rather impressive when compared to similar services. MEGA offers apps for mobile, PC and Firefox and Chrome extensions as well. Synchronization of whole disks and folders and further sharing and updating is also available. MEGA promises a high level of encryption for the files that are stored and shared; even the name MEGA is an abbreviation of MEGA Encrypted Global Access.
Bitcasa
A free account on Bitcasa Drive offers users as much as 5 GB of space. With this plan you can also automatically back-up your files and can access the account on this cloud storage from three devices. This cloud storage offers secure storage of your files. Synchronizing the files is not supported, so when you share a file with someone, you just send a file—you can’t work mutually online. Instead, consider Bitcasa Drive as a virtual hard drive. If you only need to keep some files online and use this cloud service as an online flash drive, this can also be an option.
SpiderOak
SpiderOak is first famous for its recommendation from Edward Snowden, who claims that this cloud storage is the best for encryption and you can trust your files are safe with it. A free account lets you use 2 GB of space, and all your uploaded files are guaranteed to be totally secure. You can back up and restore the files, synchronize files and folders within devices connected to your account, and share files and folders with others.
pCloud
pCloud storage offers 20 GB on a free account, which is a decent amount of space. Synchronization of the files within an account on all the connected devices is supported by this service. Files can be shared and edited by the invited users (through the pCloud client installed). The versions of the files during the last 30 days can be restored as well as deleted files. pCloud uses its own encryption mechanism called pCloud Crypto and they promise your files will be totally secured.
Today there are plenty of decent free cloud storage services that you can turn to when you need to keep your files online, work on them with other users, and share them. Pick the best one that will work for you based on our review.