After a brief hiatus, we are back to blogging again. This Friday, we thought we’d ease into things with a “Top 5” blog post. This one being the Top 5 Misconceptions About File Sharing.
1. File Sharing is Illegal
This misconception dates back to the early 2000s with the rise of Napster and various other file sharing services. With these applications, people would download movies and music albums that they had not purchased. This, in itself, is illegal but this is merely a small subset of what file sharing can do. As long as you have legally purchased everything that you are sharing, you are fine.
2. File Sharing is Only for Music and Videos
Also evolving from the early 2000s is the mindset that file sharing is purely for the exchanging of music and video files. Well, as users of Send Anywhere have seen, this is 100% false. Given the right application, file sharing works for every type of file imaginable — from photos to APK files to Photoshop…but music and videos still make up a large portion of the transfers 🙂
3. While File Sharing, You May Not Know the Sender
Just like the previous two, this misconception also derives its meaning from the early 2000s. During this time, you would search for whatever song/video you wanted, would download it from the Cloud, and that was that. The issue is that you were uncertain who you were downloading from apart from it being someone who claimed to have the album or movie that you wanted. The thing is, because you did not know the sender, you could not verify their claims. Therefore, you put yourself at risk of accidentally downloading a virus as opposed to the newest Ja Rule album (remember when he was relevant?!?). Most file sharing platforms nowadays are designed strictly for sending files between friends or family thereby bypassing any fears one may have of downloading strange material from an unknown sender.
4. Messengers or Email Can Handle All
Many people believe that messenger applications (Facebook, GroupMe, etc.) and email will be able to easily handle all of their file sharing needs when, in fact, there are a few faults with these methodologies. First off, they are not able to handle every file type so you will be limited in what you are able to send to your friends and family. Second, they will have file limits which means you will not be able to send as many files as you may want or will be forced to send them in multiple batches. Furthermore, messenger applications as well as email all require a logon which can become quite annoying. Some file sharing applications can accept every file type, of every size, all without logging on or signing up. While very few offer all three, most offer at least of these features.
5. All File Transferring Apps Are the Same
Number five on our list is the idea that file transferring applications are a “one size fits all” type of deal. That one can download any number of these applications and they will be nearly identical apart from the UI design and company name. This, in fact, might be the largest misconception of all five. Starting with the basics, not all applications support every platform available. Some are merely for Android, some iOS, etc. Very few have the ability to work across all platforms. Furthermore, while you can handle nearly every file type, not all are unlimited. Many limit the size of the batch that you are sending, even if you subscribe to their paid plan. Lastly, some also require singing up and logging in every time you wish to send something.
And that completes our Top 5 list. Hopefully you found this informative. Let us know what you think by commenting below or Tweeting us.