Another big limitation is no Linux sync. Even if you don't currently have a Linux machine, do you really want your choices limited in the future by your file hosting service?

250MB.

In this case at least, the maximum file size varies with your plan.

It's not clear to me, either — which is also like Google Wave. I followed links to try to figure it out, but others may not have; why would a special-offer page not at least try to describe what the service is? Not smart marketing.

I just signed up and tried it out with some stuff. It's like a big mashup timeline of all your stuff along with some filters.

So for example I connected my twitter and my github, so if I tweet (or someone tweets @me) it shows up there. Similarly if I commit stuff to github (or presumably if someone on my team commits stuff) it posts the commit message to me.

It's pretty neat, might dig in a bit more later.

PC world reckons the Box account will always be free [1], and Hojoki says that there will always be a free plan [2].

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2018603/get-a-free-25gb-box-a... [2] http://hojoki.com/#plans

It doesn't really sound too good to be true to me. A file hosting service is able to buy large hard drives and then commoditize their space. A dollar currently buys about 20GB. So if one of these 25GB users decides to upgrade, then each month, they will pay the overhead for 10 new 25GB users (forever minus the cost of occasionally replacing old hard drives, bandwidth, etc.), or 40 new ordinary free 5GB users.

Moreover, if somebody uses even 10GB, they're pretty well locked in to box.com. That's more than any competitor I know of gives with free accounts, so to switch, you'd be looking at paying, right off the bat, for service you haven't vetted yet.

So while 25GB may feel generous, it's really only a one dollar loss leader, and the "catch" is built in to ordinary usage of the service.

Box.net runs this type of promotion regularly. I remember, I got 50GB free lifetime (till company survives) account by signing up using their iPad app.

I got 50GB for signing up with my android a while back, and I haven't seen a bill yet.