Minus is a file-sharing tool that is designed to allow you to easily transfer files within teams, outside your network, and between computers and devices.

Note: This review was performed based on the publicly available free version.

Specifications

  • Requirements: Web browser
  • Price: Free
  • Additional Information: Product Web site

Who’s it for?

People who want to share files without using email or posting them to a Web server can use Minus. Minus is also an option for geographically dispersed teams.

What problems does it solve?

Sharing files is a hassle, especially for larger files or in situations where you can’t just burn a DVD, pass a USB drive around, or share a network drive. Typically, people turn to complex solutions like posting files to a Web or FTP server. With Minus, a simple interface and a variety of native clients make file sharing quite easy.

Standout features

  • Price: Free is a great price!
  • Ease of Use: From the instant, pain-free sign-up process and on, Minus is extremely easy to use.
  • Native Clients: It is nice to have the option of using native clients, not just for Windows and Max but also for Ubuntu and phones too.
  • Built-in Filename Shortening: Filename shortening is a handy feature, and it is built right in to the system.

What’s wrong?

  • Storage Space: The 10GB limit is enough for many folks, but for some teams, they will need more. Minus does not have a way of getting more space, not even if you pay for it (there is no pay version yet).
  • No Password Protection: While there is a “private” option for files, it does not mean that you need a password to access them; they just are not visible to the public. Many people will require more security choices.

Competitive products

Bottom line for business

Minus is a very easy-to-use application. It is a great example of how deliberately limiting your feature set can produce an intuitive application that has zero friction to the user. I experienced a few very minor bugs. For example, in Internet Explorer 9, the feature of just dragging a file onto the screen to upload it did not work. I also noticed that when deleting files, the storage usage count did not automatically update. All the same, the bugs were something I noticed in passing, more like “quirks” than “bugs” really.

Minus is another entry in a field that already has two heavyweights duking it out: Box.net and Dropbox. What Minus does, it does well, and its out-of-the-gate free storage capacity is better than the competition. But outside of that, Minus is playing catch-up with the feature set. More problematic for Minus is that they do not have any paid options; if you need more space or functionality than what they offer, you are out of luck.