Early Hands-on with Dotcom's new MEGA

Tonight, the tech world news will contain Mega coverage of Kim Dotcom, as his much-publicised service launches in New Zealand. The launch comes exactly 1 year after the US-led armed raid of Dotcom’s mansion.

I was lucky to get an early invite, and eagerly tested it to see if it has been worth the hype. Is it the new big thing or is it just another file locker?


The answer to that depends entirely on what you want from it. Place to store files, sure it works. As a place to share them, to other people (irrespective of the why) it’s not so suitable.

Through my tests, one thing that did come up, was the insistence of using Chrome (even if it’s a bit heavy on the alerts) although both Firefox and Opera seemed to have few issues – the main one being that downloads don’t work at all. The reasons are explained in the Mega Blog, but indicate some severe restrictions in the usage of Mega. Mostly it centers on the ability to write files from javascript (which some see as a security/safety feature)

Otherwise, the usage is fairly decent, and has a decent feature set, including shared folders between contacts. It’s good, but not special.

What is intended to make it special is the encryption. The file encryption is supposedly so that you, and only you, can access the files. Access to the file and its key, are available from the file manager, where the file address, address with key, and its name and size are selectable options.

It seems to work. BUT, as a caveat, only if you have Chrome. Will it overtake other file hosts and storage services? Well, I don’t think Dropbox or even bayfiles will be overly worried. I mean, sure I’ve only got 11Gb on dropbox, not 50, but I don’t have to worry about using the right browser either.

My verdict – wait until some of the long list of things still to be done are finished.

Screenshots

Encryption key being generated

Don't dare use Firefox (or opera, or anything but Chrome)

Download options if you've got the key. download direct, or transfer to your storage area

Bulk uploading is enabled, but no options to manage the uploads

The options window

The links window (by clicking the icon on the right of the file list
Each option is colour-coded.