We all know about third party tools such as GSpace and Gmail Drive that let you use a Gmail account as free online file storage. This may seem like a potential abuse of the 2.7+ GB of “email” storage, but there’s nothing explicit in Gmail’s terms of use that would prevent the use of such tools. Get multiple Gmail accounts and you effectively have free online storage of unlimited capacity. This may be unnecessary if Gmail offers unlimited storage, which is likely.

However, at a first glance, these tools have a few annoying limitations. To be fair, some are limitations of Gmail, not the tools themselves.

• Google may change the way Gmail works at any time, rendering the tools useless.
• You are dependent on installed software to access files; no web interface accessible from any browser.
• No URLs for files so you can link them into web pages.
• Some have limits on filename length.

Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets feature is of some consolation with the obvious limitation of only allowing two kinds of files, as well as restricting individual file size and number of files. However, it has the advantage of allowing you to not only access your files through a web interface, but also edit them.

My question is: If Google have all this storage space to burn, why don’t they offer free online storage with comparable capacity to Gmail? We can already do it using third party hacks. A proper Google version would be better. I want unlimited storage with reasonable caps on bandwidth (daily or monthly), similar to Flickr, and a public folder in which files can be accessed with a URL.

There are quite a few non-Google free online storage services, and I’ll probably do a comparative review if any of them are half decent, but in the meantime I’ll contemplate migrating some of my files to Docs & Spreadsheets to take some of the load of my PC and backups.