Do you know what Dropbox, Skydrive, Google Drive, and Box.net all have in common? They don’t give 50GB of free cloud storage. (Okay, you can get 50GB of free storage on Box.net if you fulfill some specific requirements but for the purposes of this poetic introduction, let’s assume that isn’t true.) Do you know what does give 50GB of free cloud storage? MediaFire.

MediaFire, one of the more popular file locker/storage websites, is popular for its fast download — and upload — speeds and well-designed user interface. MediaFire has always had free and paid accounts, offering basic services with the free account. Now MediaFire has upped the ante by giving all free account users 50GB of free cloud storage.

For the grand total of $0 per month, MediaFire is giving users the ability to store up to 50GB of data, the ability to share files and/or folders with others, uncapped download speeds, unlimited simultaneous downloads, ability to create 15 one-time download links a day, and access to MediaFire Express, a program for Windows, Mac, and Linux that allows users to upload files to MediaFire directly from your desktop.

Of course nothing in life is perfect (aside from my wife — I hope she reads this) and MediaFire’s free accounts are no exception. For free users, MediaFire limits file sizes to 200MB, does not allow direct download links (anyone that wants to download your file is first directed to an ad-filled page before they are given the download link), file uploads cannot be done over SSL, and inactive free accounts are deleted (i.e. files will be lost). Plus MediaFire does not offer any syncing capabilities (MediaFire Express allows you to upload files to MediaFire, it does not sync your files), and there doesn’t appear to be any MediaFire apps for mobile devices.

Still, though, despite its drawbacks having 50GB of free cloud storage on a reputable file locker is always a handy thing to have… assuming MediaFire is not hit by the feds like MegaUpload. To get started with MediaFire, hit up the link below.

MediaFire homepage | Registration page