Unanswered topics in Wuala tagged with howto

WUALA, YOUR FREE ONLINE HARD-DISK

Wuala is a new way of storing, sharing, and publishing files on the internet. It's a free desktop application for Windows, Mac, and Linux that brings you a convenient and secure online storage. Unlike traditional online storage systems, Wuala is decentralized and can harness idle resources of participating computers to build a large, secure, and reliable online storage. This new technology has a number of advantages and it allows us to provide you a better service for free.

ACCESS, SHARE & PUBLISH FILES

You can use Wuala to upload a file and access it from anywhere else, even when your computer is offline. Or you can use it to share files such as photos, videos, music, or documents with friends or groups. Furthermore, you can publish files for the whole world to see. In the public area, you can search and browse for what others have published. You can store any file you want in any size you want. Downloads are fast and there are no traffic limits.

GET AS MUCH STORAGE AS YOU LIKE

You start with 1 GB provided by us. If you want more, you can simply trade some space on your hard disk for additional online storage. The idea behind Wuala is not to give you more storage in total (apart from the first GB provided by us), but to change the quality of your storage: It is able to transform local storage into online storage that can be accessed from anywhere and at any time, even when your computer is offline.

SECURITY & PRIVACY

Wuala is secure and protects your privacy: All files you store are encrypted such that only you and those authorized by you can access them. All encryption and decryption is performed locally and your password is never sent to us - so not even we can access your files.

FREE, CONVENIENT DESKTOP APPLICATION

Wuala comes as a convenient desktop application for Windows, Mac, and Linux. After a quick download, Wuala is ready. It is integrated into your operating system so that you can conveniently drag and drop files, upload files in the background, open files in your favorite application, and stream media files directly.

COMPUTER SCIENCE DREAM

The idea behind Wuala is not new. In fact, organizing idle resources of unreliable computers into a large, reliable and secure distributed online storage has been an old dream of computer science. When we started back in fall 2004 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), it was our vision to realize this dream - today, we think we've taken the first step. Because idle resources are used whenever possible, we can offer you a better service for free.

IDLE RESOURCES

Instead of centralized servers, Wuala uses the idle resources (storage and bandwidth) of computers of its users who can opt to trade their local storage for online storage. Note that not everybody has to offer local storage and in fact, not everyone can. Local storage is only useful to the system if the computer is online more than 17% of the time on average (about 4 hours a day). Only when you meet this requirement, you are allowed to trade your local storage for more online storage. But even if you do not contribute, we give you 1 GB of free online storage which is already enough for most purposes.

INCENTIVES

The more local storage you provide, the more online storage you get, depending on your online time (e.g., if you provide 10 GB of your local storage and you are online 70% of the time, you get 7 GB of additional online storage). Please note that Wuala doesn't give you more storage in total, but that it changes the quality of your storage: It is able to transform local storage into online storage that can be accessed from anywhere and at any time, even when your computer is offline. The incentive for providing upload bandwidth is similar: The more upload bandwidth you provide, the faster your download speed will be.

SECURITY

Security is a key design issue in Wuala: All files stored in Wuala are encrypted and all cryptographic operations are performed locally. Your password never leaves your computer - so no one, including us, can access your files unless you publish them. Wuala employs the 128 bit AES algorithm for encryption and the 2048 bit RSA algorithm for authentication.

RELIABILITY

In order to achieve high reliability, all files are stored redundantly, using so-called erasure codes. This also allows for fast downloads since your computer can download many pieces of the same file in parallel from different sources. In case that a file cannot be found in the network at a certain time, we store an encrypted backup of every file on our servers. Furthermore, your computer keeps a copy (also encrypted) of all your files in its local cache. This not only allows fast local access to your files, but it also allows your computer to take care of your stored files and automatically re-upload them if necessary. You can decide, of course, which of your computers should keep the backup (e.g. your desktop PC, not your laptop).