There are lots of free services to transfer big files without ftp or send a big file to someones email address that is too big for the mail server to accept.
Typically, though, you have to create an account or maybe the “big” limit is 50MB or even 300MB.
Yesterday I had to send a big file of over 300MB to someone and I did not want to have to create an account nor did I want the receiving party to have to create an account to download the file.
The answer I found was SendSpace which recently increased their file limit to 500MB.
All I needed to do was enter my email address, his email address and browse to select the file from my desktop. After the upload was done I was given two links, both on the web page and later emailed to me.
The first link was a link to download the file (it was a zip file that I had password protected, I sent the password to the recipient via a separate email) and the other was a link to DELETE the file from SendSpace’s server after the other party had successfully downloaded it.
Worked slick, I could send my big file, larger than many services would accept in their free service; the other guy downloaded and then I was able to delete.
The only “risk” is that I gave a company 2 email addresses that I hope they respect and secure.
From my one usage I can say I highly recommend SendSpace for that one time big file transfer – free and no account required.
I am a wedding photographer and need to transfer tons of pictures to my clients on a regular basis. I used to use upload based services like the one you mentioned but recently discovered Binfer.com The best thing I like about it is that I can simply drag and drop a bunch of pictures and send them to my client and they get sent directly to their computer, without uploading anywhere.
binfer does look interesting, especially between trusted parties (basic encryption advantage if you use the desktop application for download).
It does require software to be installed on your PC, so it’s probably not quite as desirable for 1 time usage.
Thanks for the comment and recommendation