A History of Online File Sharing

Over the years, file sharing has evolved and become something much more advanced than anyone could ever have imagined. Online file sharing started back in the 1970s, well before most people thought it did, through the creation of Ward Christensen’s XModem – a point to point binary transfer protocol. From that first creation, online file sharing has come on leaps and bounds, and today we’re going to be taking a look at some of the important moments in the history of online file sharing.

A History of Online File Sharing

Following the creation of Xmodem in 1977, there were a few additional improvements made to online file sharing, but nothing major. Christensen’s CBBS became the first bulletin board, and Usenet was created by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis to facilitate discussions and and transfer files.

In the 1980s, the majority of file sharing took place via modems on landlines, but storage space was limited, computers were nothing like they are today and only shortnames were supported – all in all, file sharing occurred, but was incredibly limited and barely resembled the massive practice we see today. Real advancements in online file sharing didn’t occur until the 1990s.

The big advancements of the 1990s with regards to file sharing largely came in the form of compression, new file types, and generally better computers and internet. Copper cables were the primarily used cables in the 1990s, with fibre optic cables becoming available – although not widely – towards the end of the decade. The creation of MP3 as a file type for sound, AOL messenger and Napster brought with it a certain convenience of file sharing, but this peer to peer file sharing had legal ramifications. There were a number of law suits in the 90s with regards to the illegality of peer to peer file sharing – something which is still prevalent to this day, leading to the closure of many websites that facilitate peer to peer file sharing on a large scale, and internet service providers stamping down on the practice.

Modern online file sharing really found its feet with the arrival of the 2000s up to today. Huge improvements in technology, the Internet, file types, compression and so on have made file sharing hugely beneficial and convenient to the casual users as well as business users. The 2000s are littered with the creation of file sharing websites, the creation of BitTorrent in 2001, and various other file sharing milestones that have shaped online file sharing into what we know it to be today.

The future of file sharing at this point is uncertain, but with further technological advances, it’s sure to be interesting.

Offcloud, your cloud-based download manager

Although in the past, online file sharing relied on physical storage, that’s no longer the case. With Offcloud, you can download direct to your cloud storage, direct from BitTorrent! This allows you to make use of your downloaded files, media and software on any of your devices – because  Offcloud works in your browser, on any device you fancy using.

You can make use of a free version of Offcloud to see if you can make use of our services, so definitely check it out!