How to send large files in the web browser

While the Internet can do many things, there is still a big problem when users try to send large files without installing proprietary file transfer software on their computers. For example, a user trying to sync files and folders must download syncing software to monitor and transfer files. Other methods, such as FTP, require both the client and server running FTP software. In an ideal scenario, a user should be able to send large files, such as audio files and high-definition videos, entirely from within their web browser without having to install proprietary software.

Unfortunately, today’s web browser technology has not been able to provide a solution. The most popular web browsers (including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8, Chrome, FireFox, and Safari) limit the maximum size of the files that can be sent to two gigabytes. As a workaround, many large file sharing websites require their users to download and install proprietary file upload software, which works outside of their users’ web browsers, to send large files. In fact, most web based file transfer websites won't even allow their users to send large files over two gigabytes at all.

There is one technical solution that will allow people to user their browsers to upload files over two gigabytes in size: JAVA.

JAVA, is one of the most popular programming languages in use today. It comes pre-installed on nearly all major operating systems, and enables any web browser to run a JAVA applet. JAVA file upload applets can be configured without the file size limits that inhibit typically web-based file sharing solutions. That allows file transfer websites to send large files over two gigabytes without any additional application software. A brief first-run download, installation, and initialization is all that is required to enable this capability. This process usually only takes a few moments, can be automatically handled by the web browser without requiring configuration, and will allow the user to have access to many other JAVA-based applications.

A JAVA applet requires a JAVA virtual machines (JVM) to run, which are available on nearly all platforms (including mobile phones, desktop computers, and even supercomputers). For this reason, JAVA-based applications also benefits the software developer. A JVM serves as an intermediary, allowing the software developer to run a single version of their software program across all JVM's. This saves a tremendous amount of resources that would normally be spent writing and testing custom code in different programming languages to run on each platform.

In short, JAVA is one of the few, if not the only, way that currently allows someone to send large files bigger than two gigabytes, so they can avoid file-transfer-protocol (FTP) software and other complicated methods of file sharing. JAVA's convenience also allows developers to easily distribute software applications across multiple platforms.