MediaFire is a kick-ass file sharing service provider with drop dead simple functions and elegant website to boot. With 50GB free storage and several useful features for paid plan at just $1.5 per month, it is the go-to service you should absolutely look into if you want a solid cloud file sharing service without all the hassles, annoying ads and limited speed for non-registered users. Read the full review below or sign up now.
Among all the services we have reviewed here on BestBackups so far, MediaFire is a different beast compared to others. It is not quite a cloud backup solution provider (although you can make use of it as one, if you so wish for) nor the same as other file sharing services like 4Shared and ShareFile even though all three of them are in contenders when it comes to file sharing. For one, MediaFire gives you more bang for your bucks, and also offer more than just file sharing features. It doesn’t have syncing like 4Shared but the website is a lot easier to use and MediaFire Express, the client software of MediaFire for your computer, is also cross-platform compatible.
MediaFire comes as free offering with limited but still awesome features, and Personal Plan which will only cost you a spare change you always find under your couch. Not only that, MediaFire makes file uploads and shares dead simple. Not only that, there is not a single time MediaFire will enforce you to queue up to download a file (don’t we all know the pain of that in other sites?), limit speed or download only one file at a time. And you get 50GB storage for free without shelling out a penny. How does that sound?
Pricing Plans
Right now, MediaFire ‘seems’ to offer 4 plans ranging from free to business. When I said “seems”, it’s because we can only sign up to Free and Personal plans. Pro and Business plans are there, but currently MediaFire doesn’t allow signing up to them nor upgrading. My guess is that as MediaFire revamped their service recently – offering Personal Plan which is cheaper than former MediaFire Pro ($9/month) and retooling Pro plan into Pro and Business plans with more features for businesses – they are going to iron out the kinks before they will let general public to get a hold at Pro and Business plans.
For this review though, we will be providing details about all four plans.
Free
This is the basic plan where you just need username, password and email address to sign up. You get 50GB out of the box, with maximum individual file size limit of 200MB and inactive accounts only get actually deleted after about 1 year. But the features such as viewing documents and editing right in MediaFire website, file and folder sharing, and unlimited fast simultaneous downloads are also available here. You can also create One-time Links (which expires after the file is downloaded once) for 15 links a day. You can also have 1 custom folder link.
Personal – $18 per year ($1.5/month)
This is the only paid plan currently available to public. You get same storage space as Free plan, and all other basic features Free plan has. But with Personal plan, you also get to upload 1GB maximum for individual files, and your files stay in storage forever. You get 50GB per month bandwidth for Content Distribution (which we will explain later) as well as 100 One-time Links per day. If you want to have custom folder links, then you get up to 5 with Personal account. Additional features which are only available for paid users such as secure redundant backups, downloading entire folders, priority email support and enhanced security are also available for Personal plan subscribers. You will have to pay yearly though, but then the price is pretty much negligible for all the storage you get.
Pro – $27 per 6 months ($4.5/month)
Here with Pro account, you get 250GB of storage and 4GB individual file size limit. Content Distribution bandwidth is bumped up to 500GB/month and you also get to create 500 One-time Links per day. If you are a fan of custom folder links, then you also get 25 of them. All premium features available for Personal plan are available with Pro accounts, with the addition of detailed download statistics, fully customizable branding and FileDrop uploader.
Business – $73.5 per 3 months ($24.5/month)
If you are running a business and do file sharing a lot, then you will want to look into this one. 1000GB of storage, 10GB individual file size limit, 100 additional users on account, 4000GB/month Content Distribution bandwidth, 5000 One-time Links per day, 100 custom folder links, unique custom domain for your own company, and detailed security log are all the awesome features Business account users will enjoy. For the price we will be paying, it’s pretty kick-ass.
All plans come with 30-day money back guarantee, no questions asked.
Features
MediaFire offers boatloads of features but all of them focus on two things: dead simple file sharing and online collaboration. Collaboration features seem to be newly implemented but as far as I have tested, they are very solid. However, I could only test for the features in the Personal plans as Pro and Business plans are not yet available for public.
Share Files & Folders. With MediaFire, you can share not just files but also whole folders. So you can share links to specific files, entire folders or individual files within a folder.
Cross-platform compatibility. MediaFire mainly relies on its beautiful website for majority of its functions. But their software, MediaFire Express, which is used for uploading files directly from your computer without using a browser, is available on all major platforms – Linux, Windows and Mac. The software leaves very little footprint and very easy to use. There is an iOS app and Android app will be launched soon.
Online Documents Creation & Editing. It seems that MediaFire has integrated rather well with Zoho Office suites. Basically, you can create and edit spreadsheets, documents, presentations and text files (in both .rtf and .txt formats). The Zoho Office suite has been evolved rather well since the last time I used, and I am actually loving the features it provides. Plus, it reads Microsoft Office formatting styles better than Google Docs, in my honest opinion.
Unlimited Fast Simultaneous Downloads. Unlike other file sharing sites like Rapidshare, 4Shared or ShareFile, you don’t have to queue up, wait for timer or have limited speed when you download files from MediaFire. This applies even for files from free accounts too.
One-time Links. If you want to share sensitive documents or let subscribers download digital contents from you, you can generate one-time links for files you want to share. Basically, after someone download that file, the link will expire and will not work anymore.
Customized Folder Links. If you want to have customized links for a folder for easy sharing purposes, then MediaFire got it covered for you. It doesn’t allow you to have unlimited customized links though, even for Business plan subscribers. So you can have links like “http://www.bestbackups.com/goto/mediafiresfaith_meeting_minutes” or if you have Business account, you can have custom domains like “http://bestbackups.mediafire.com/backup_reviews”.
Download Entire Folders. If you want to share loads of files but don’t want downloaders to go through the hassles of downloading each files, rest assured that all paid plans include this feature. You can download up to 700MB of files within a folder. This applies to downloading back your own files too.
FileDrop Uploader. This feature is only for Pro and Business users so we haven’t tested. But as far as we can discern, it will allow you to put a FileDrop widget on your website (or just on MediaFire site) where other people can drag and drop files into that to upload those files to your account. Let’s say that you are running a web design business and need to collect photos from your client, then all they have to do is drag and drop those photos into FileDrop Uploader and boom, they will appear on your MediaFire account. Pretty handy!
Detailed Download Statistics. If you are a Pro or Business account holders, then you can get comprehensive statistics and reports on downloads of every files in your account.
Fully customizable branding. This is for Pro and Business account holders too. You can actually customize the logo and color scheme to provide seamless experience to your own team and customers.
Unique custom domain. Although it said you can configure it to use custom domain, you won’t get something like “http://www.bestbackups.com/mediafire” but rather “http://bestbackups.mediafire.com/”. Still not very bad if you are a business and want to have more unique URL to give to your team and clients.
Detailed security log. This is only for Business account holders. You can view very detailed logs of who accessed what files, who uploaded or deleted a file, changes in settings, permissions and every access details.
Security
MediaFire’s store files on secured and redundant storage environment. So even if there is a hard drive failure at MediaFire’s side, your files will be safe. And they use SSL encryption during uploading and when you store the files on the server. All files you upload will be public by default but nobody can access them without direct links. If you wish, you can make them private (not shareable) or make them password protected.
Customer Service
MediaFire provides customer support through ticket system and email. For paid users, you can higher priority than free users but I have to say that I’ve got pretty fast responses even as a free user. Not only that, they have FAQ section where it answers a few common questions. A comprehensive knowledgebase is available and there are also video tutorials available after you signed up to guide you through MediaFire interface as well as its MediaFire Express client software.
The Process
The sign-up process is ridiculously easy. When you click on Sign Up, you will be brought to pricing table where you can choose between plans. Then after you choose one, you will get a dead simple sign-up page. All you need to supply is your name, display name (optional), email and password. If you did choose a paid plan though, after this page you will be brought to a billing page. You can make payment by either credit card or PayPal.
After you sign up, you will be brought automatically to MediaFire dashboard, and it will welcome you with a timezone setting and short tutorial to teach you how to start using MediaFire.
After that, it will remind you to verify your account from your email. MediaFire have sent you a unique PIN code to the email you entered. If you want, you can verify by phone. Just enter your number and an automated machine will call you and provide you with PIN code. If you don’t verify, you will be limited to 50 downloads.
After that, you are free to explore your MediaFire account. My Files is where you will see all folders and files you have in your account, and also where you will interact with your files all the time.
When you hover mouse pointer to a file or folder, you will see available actions to the right. You can download, share, view or do numerous other things like giving password protection and making the files private.
To upload, simply press U key on your keyboard or click on Upload to the left. You can drag and drop files into the uploader or just click on + sign and choose files. You can choose multiple files to upload as well. Even for big files, I find the upload pretty fast. And unlike many other browser-based uploads, MediaFire feels slick and sophisticated. The uploader will show progress in a bar too.
After uploading, you can copy link to files or share them right from the Uploader. If you want, just return to My Files. When you want to share a file or folder, there are multiple options. You can generate one-time link, or post directly to social networks, send via email, or embed on a website. You can also copy a link directly.
If you want to create a document, look for Create menu to the left and choose appropriate option you want to. A new browser tab or window will be opened and you will see Zoho editor (although there is no branding element of Zoho) for the document type you want to create. If you want to create a folder, simply pressing N will do.
You can view PDF and many other sorts of documents, spreadsheets, music and video files and presentations in MediaFire.
Click on Edit File on a document, spreadsheet or presentation file and you will see your file in a Zoho editor in a new tab, ready to be edited and saved.
At the top navigation bar, you will see Tools menu which is where you download MediaFire Express. Downloading the client software and installing is very easy. It will create a system tray icon too. Once you launch MediaFire Express client software, you will be welcomed with a screen to login or register.
Uploading files is as easy as dragging files into MediaFire Express software window. You can change linked MediaFire account and other settings in Settings window.
Conclusion
File sharing is the vanguard of MediaFire and after revamping, they are really playing up the main strength. With MediaFire, file sharing becomes drop dead easy and simple. You don’t need to worry about a lot of things, and you also get enormous storage space out of the box. And Personal plan is ridiculously affordable at $18 a year, where you get many other features. If you are looking for an online backup solution provider, look elsewhere. But if you want a solid file sharing provider without breaking your bank and go through complicated setups, MediaFire will be right at home for you.
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