Wuala is an online drive, accessible from anywhere. Based on P2P technology, it stores encrypted versions of your documents around the Wuala network, so that they will always be available to you with no risk of server breakdown. Thanks to a multi-download system (as bytes of your files are located on different PCs of the network), you will access your files quickly. The program in itself is highly usable and has a pleasant design. All the files you store are set as private by default but if you need to share them with your friends, groups or with the whole network, you can do that easily by changing their availability.
The downsides are that you need the application installed to access your files, and this may be a problem when you are not at home or in the office. Furthermore, in order to use more than 1GB of storage you need to make the same amount of space available on your own hard-disk, for sharing over the network. I.E. if you would like to store files of 50GB, you’d have to make 50GB available on your own hard-disk.
The application could come in handy for anyone who needs to regularly back up data. In that case, one would have a secure virtual disk, always available. For users who just need to have a limited online hard-disk, accessible from a web-page thus without any installation, there are simpler useful services, like eSnips.com.
Wuala is a potentially very interesting application for secure backups and sharing documents with a working group but some of its restrictions limit its utility.
