First, for those who don’t know, filedropper is an awesome file hosting website. It allows anyone to upoad files of up to 5 GB in size, and it will simply host them. That being said, it is not without its faults.

However, I’d like to start off on a more positive note: filedropper is a great service. Being able to easily share any file up to 5 GB in size? AWESOME! Being able to create a free account (there was a promotion for digg, reddit, and other social news sites) that allows me to store and manage 250 GB of files? SWEET! And, of course, there are the features like being able to password protect your files, e-mail them to other people, etc.

Now that I’ve gotten through that, filedropper could use some major improvements.

For starters, (this is not filedropper’s fault), most people don’t have a good enough upload speed to wait to upload 5 GB of data. I’d rather see filedropper put resources towards my other points. Now, if you do have enough of an upload to send filedropper 5 GB of data, then good for you! What could filedropper do to help this? The only thing I can currently think of is providing an “upload from URL option,” but this would also seem pointless. Filedropper just doesn’t seem to be friendly to most American ISPs.

Now, something that does matter for a file hosting service is download speed. What’s filedropper’s? Not good. On my connection, I can average 700 kb/s download. Through filedropper, I can average 300 kb/s download. For a file sharing service, especially one that brags that you’ll be able to download 5 GB files from them, this is terrible. That being said, most people, I’m sure, will not be downloading 5 GB files from filedropper, but if the idea is there, the technology needs to fit.

So, how can they fix this major issue? I realize that the filedropper people have probably put a lot of time and money into this project, but they need a better net connection. While most file hosting services will advertise that they “are on the backbone of the internet,” filedropper can only be found advertising, “LOOK! 5 GB!” Right now, it seems as though filedropper is hosted in someone’s basement. There’s no problem with that, but this person needs a better net connection.

Finally, filedropper is vague about how long they keep your files. Their “about” page says that files are kept, “forever as long as they are being downloaded.” Well, that sounds like a politician’s way of carefully avoiding the question. They do state “forever” in there, but contradict it with “as long as they are being downloaded.” So, which is it? If no one downloads my file for a week, will it be deleted? Or is the number a month? I’d rather see a concrete number, than a very vague answer.

So, while filedropper is great in theory, the execution is less than perfect. There are a few simple (but expensive, I realize), ways that filedropper can make their great service even better.