Wuala Is a Powerful, Cross-Platform File Syncer (With Lots of Tricks for Extra Free Space) [Video]
Windows/Mac/Linux and iOS/Android: If you have more than a few gigs of files to sync between computers, Wuala is a great cross-platform tool that syncs, shares, and saves multiple versions of your files, for a low (or free) price.
We've mentioned Wuala before, long ago, but it's recently become a bit more popular, no doubt due to its great prices and recent iPhone and Android apps. It's now positioned as a real Dropbox contender, as it syncs files between all your computers, from different folders, and at great prices—in fact, some of the best prices we've seen yet.
Even better than that, though, are their other methods for getting free space. Like Dropbox, you can invite your friends and get a bit of extra space, but the best way is to "trade" local space on your hard drive for extra Wuala space. If you have extra space on your hard drive you aren't using, you can let Wuala use it as extra space for their caches, and get free cloud space with them in return. It isn't an exact 1:1 ratio, though; it multiplies the space you trade by how often your computer is connected (since they need you to be connected to use the space). So, if you trade them 100 GB of your local space and your computer is connected 70% of the time, you'll get 70 extra GB of cloud space to sync your files.
Even better than that, though, are their other methods for getting free space. Like Dropbox, you can invite your friends and get a bit of extra space, but the best way is to "trade" local space on your hard drive for extra Wuala space. If you have extra space on your hard drive you aren't using, you can let Wuala use it as extra space for their caches, and get free cloud space with them in return. It isn't an exact 1:1 ratio, though; it multiplies the space you trade by how often your computer is connected (since they need you to be connected to use the space). So, if you trade them 100 GB of your local space and your computer is connected 70% of the time, you'll get 70 extra GB of cloud space to sync your files.In addition, you can grab coupon codes for Wuala over at RetailMeNot. While there are a lot of great ways to increase your free space on Dropbox, if you really need a large amount of space, Wuala's got you covered in quite a few ways, including just plain lower prices. The downside, I've found, is that Wuala's a tad more difficult to use. Syncing files isn't quite as straightforward as Dropbox, but you can also sync files from anywhere on your computer, and sync them to any location on your other computers, making it a bit more powerful than Dropbox's more all-or-nothing method. And, if you're a little confused, they offer a lot of tutorial videos on their site to help you get started.
Overall, if you need some serious cloud space for syncing files, I highly recommend checking out Wuala. And, of course, if you already have a favorite file syncing service, there's no reason you can't use them alongside one another for free and organized backup.
Wuala is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. You get 1 GB to start with, and it doesn't come with file syncing and sharing by default—just cloud storage. However, by trading up local space or buying extra space directly, you automatically get a Pro account, which brings in all the advanced features. Check out the video above for more info. Thanks, Bill!
You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
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