I learned about FolderShare a few months ago from another person’s blog (sorry, I don’t remember who).  It appeared to be a really neat service, but you could only synchronize a limited amount of information for the free account.  The prices for the paid accounts were reasonable, but not something I felt necessary.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they purchased Foldershare, and that they plan to integrate it into their new Microsoft Live offering.  The best part of this is that it is now ABSOLUTELY FREE!!

So what does FolderShare do, you ask?  You simply load Foldershare on any computer that has files you want to access from elsewhere.  Then, using a web browser on a computer anywhere in the world, you simply log into foldershare.com and you can access all of your files.  You don’t have to open any ports on your firewall or do any special configuration; it takes care of everything for you.

If you install FolderShare on a second computer, you have the additional ability of synchronizing files between the computers.  Does anyone else see the potential here — streaming automated backups!!  Maybe your parents have a computer that’s connected to a DSL / Cable connection?  If so, set up FolderShare so your files stream to their computer and their files stream to your computer.  Only changed files will be synchronized, and you’ll both always have a backup!

Security, you ask?  It appears that all transactions are done over SSL, so this should be pretty solid.  Just make sure you use a strong password, as always.