How Do I Make Files Available For Download? ... No Emails Required

EDIT: 2007-10-20
Eng-Tips has introduced a file upload service via Engineering.com's free hosting service.
Files can be attached at Step 3 when posting a reply, or at Step 4 when starting a new thread.


***********************************************************
The following is the original version of this FAQ;
***********************************************************

The purpose of this FAQ is to get around the "problem" created by the Eng-Tips policy:-

We strongly discourage posting of email addresses and phone numbers in the forums as this leads to unwanted spam.

Click to expand...

Which is fair enough ... we all get more than enough spam & other crap anyway.

So ...
If you have access to your, or your companies, Web Server, you can simply upload the file to the server & type the URL to it, into a post.

If you don't have a server you can start your search here;
http://www.google.ca/search?hs=uT7&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&q=free+file+host&btnG=Search&meta=

There are some good free ones out there. Most are very simple to use.

http://dropfiles.net/index.php
http://www.yourfilelink.com/
http://www.savefile.com/
http://www.putfile.com/
http://www.mytempdir.com/
http://www.mydatabus.com/
http://www.4shared.com/
https://www.dropbox.com/
https://www.sugarsync.com/int/referral/index.html?utm_medium=web&utm_source=website&utm_campaign=referral&referralCode=d7xv7md6b0ye5&shareEvent=619934


If you know of better ones, please let me know (email link below) and I will include it in the list.

Simply upload a file, (See limitations below) copy the URL you are given & paste it into your reply.

Some hosting sites require registration using your email address & even a recipients email address to forward the file to. The latter are probably email collectors ... avoid them ... unless you like spam.

The hosting & file limitations vary but typically are:-
[ul]
[li]No listing of previous uploaded files are available. So I suggest keeping a copy of the URLs in a separate Word, Excel or other-type file ... you choose.[/li]
[li]50MB to 500MB uploads.[/li]
[li]Files will be stored for at least 30 days, but usually longer, depending on number of downloads or server space.[/li]
[li]No files to be posted which infringe on copyrights.[/li]
[li]No Pornography.[/li]
[/ul]

PLEASE NOTE: Any files you place on this or any other server will be made freely available to anyone who sees the URL you post. Also the host site will almost certainly have access to the files ... basically to do with, as they see fit!
Consider yourself warned if you post proprietary information.

So, no more asking for, or posting, email addresses in the forums ... right !

For information on posting an image in a thread, read FAQ559-1100