Wuala was a secure

online file storage A file-hosting service, also known as cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker, is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. These services allow users to upload files that can be accessed o ...

file synchronization File synchronization (or syncing) in computing is the process of ensuring that computer files in two or more locations are updated via certain rules. In ''one-way file synchronization'', also called Web mirror, mirroring, updated files are copied ...

, versioning and

backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "wikt:back ...

service originally developed and run by Caleido Inc. It is now part of

LaCie Lacie may refer to: People and characters People with the surname * de Lacie, a French surname and noble family * Edward Lacie, a blacksmith featured on the 2018 TV episode "The Kelewang" of the competition TV show ''Forged in Fire''; see List ...

, which is in turn owned by

Seagate Technology Seagate Technology Holdings plc is an American Computer data storage, data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology and commenced business in 1979. Since 2010, the company has been incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with ...

. The service stores files in data centres that are provided by Wuala in multiple European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland). An earlier version also supported distributed storage on other users' machines, however this feature has been dropped. On 17 August 2015 Wuala announced that it was discontinuing its service and that all stored data would be deleted on 15 November 2015. Wuala recommended a rival cloud storage startup, Tresorit, as an alternative to its remaining customers.

History

Most research and development occurred at the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology are two institutes of higher education in Switzerland (part of the ETH Domain): * Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland *Sw ...

(ETH) in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

14 August 2008 :An "open beta"-java-applet, available from the website, could be run from a

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

. 19 September 2008 :The Wuala Webstart project was registered on SourceForge.net. 26 October 2008 :An

Alpha release The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

REST REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that was created to describe the design and guide the development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of ...

API, at a very early stage of development, supported HTTP GET requests for content that was either public, or shared through a keyed hyperlink. 16 December 2008 :The Uniform Resource Locator changed from http://wua.la/ to http://www.wuala.com/ and files that were public, or shared through a keyed hyperlink, were made accessible through web browsers. 19 March 2009 :

announced a merger with Caleido AG. Wuala described the merger as being between Wuala and LaCie (not Caleido AG and LaCie). 5 January 2010 :Post-merger announcement of the first joint products. 23 May 2011 :All pro features - backup, sync, file versioning and time travel - are available for everyone at no cost. 28 September 2011 :The "trade storage" feature was discontinued. 11 June 2014 :The storage plan was shifted to a paid-only service 31 October 2014 :Wuala announced that existing free-only storage would be terminated at the end of 2014 and customers wishing to save their data should migrate away or purchase a paid plan. 17 August 2015 :Wuala announced that it would allow no further renewals or purchase of storage. The service will transition to read-only on 30 September 2015 and all stored data will be deleted on 15 November 2015.

Features

Any registered user can: * keep files private * share files with other registered users * share files with unregistered users, through a keyed

hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to Data (computing), data by a user (computing), user's point and click, clicking or touchscreen, tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to ...

* publish files *

* file versioning. Registered and unregistered users can: receive

streaming media Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a Computer network, network for playback using a Media player (disambiguation), media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of Network packet, packets from a Server (computing), ...

. When a user adds a file to Wuala, or saves changes to a file that is served by Wuala, the user's local copy of file is: first encrypted, then chunked into redundant fragments using Reed-Solomon error correction codes. The fragments are then uploaded to the data centers.

Storage

Wuala offered free accounts that had 5 GB of storage for no charge. As of 11 June 2014 they shifted to a paid-only service. As of the end of 2014 they will no longer support any form of free-only storage, shifting entirely to a payment based usage model. Users of joint products may start with greater amounts of storage for a limited period: with a LaCie external

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

, 10 GB for one year or with a LaCie

USB flash drive A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...

, 4 GB for two years. Additional storage may be bought. As of June 2014, the referral system was shut down due to the new paid-only policy. For bought storage: prices range from 29 EUR/year for 20 GB to 999 EUR/year for 1 TB. Pricing changed in June 2014: The storage plan starts with 0.99 € per month (9 € per year) for 5 GB and ends at 159.90 € per Month (1799 € per year) for 2 TB of storage.

Trading

One of the distinguishing features of Wuala, the ability to trade local disk storage space against cloud storage, is no longer available.

User interfaces

Desktop application

The user interface offers most of the features that are normally associated with a

file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage computer files, files and folder (computing), folders. The most common Computer file#Operations, operations performed on files or groups of files incl ...

. Additional features come through integration. A registered user can install the

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

-based client application ( SWT-GUI): * on any number of

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

computers * with

FUSE Fuse or FUSE may refer to: Devices * Fuse (electrical), a device used in electrical systems to protect against excessive current ** Fuse (automotive), a class of fuses for vehicles * Fuse (hydraulic), a device used in hydraulic systems to protec ...

, MacFUSE and Dokan respectively for file system integration.

Wuala Webstart and web browsers

Through a

, on a computer that has Java installed: * the user can start/trust a

Java applet Java applets were applet, small applications written in the Java (programming language), Java programming language, or another programming language that Compiled language, compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Ja ...

, which downloads and runs a

class loader The Java class loader, part of the Java Runtime Environment, dynamically loads Java classes into the Java Virtual Machine. Usually classes are only loaded on demand. The virtual machine will only load the class files required for executing the prog ...

allowing fast start of the latest version of the Wuala application. If the computer is without Java, or if running of the class loader is prevented: * any folder that is public, or shared with a weblink, can be browsed.

Non-graphical interfaces

Support for the following may be limited: *

command-line interface A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via command (computing), commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user ...

daemon A demon is a malevolent supernatural being, evil spirit or fiend in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore. Demon, daemon or dæmon may also refer to: Entertainment Fictional entities * Daemon (G.I. Joe), a character ...

headless system A headless computer is a computer system or device that has been configured to operate without a monitor (the missing "head"), Keyboard (computing), keyboard, and mouse (computing), mouse. A headless system is typically controlled over a network c ...

Security

According to Wuala's FAQ, the software uses AES-256 for encryption and RSA-2048 for key exchange and signatures. Keys are organized in a key management scheme called Cryptree. According to the FAQ,FAQ entry at http://www.wuala.com/en/support/faq/c/20#id002001 Wuala employs full

client-side encryption Client-side encryption is the cryptographic technique of encrypting data on the sender's side, before it is transmitted to a server such as a cloud storage service. Client-side encryption features an encryption key that is not available to the ser ...

. All files and their metadata – most OS X metadata is not supported – get encrypted before they are uploaded. The encryption key is stored such that no one, not even

that operates the service, can decrypt the stored files. The disadvantage of this is that Wuala has no password recovery and all data processing needs to be done in the client (for example creating a search index). The advantage is significantly improved privacy. Since the source code to Wuala has not been released, it is difficult to ensure that the software does what it states it does (including proper

). Also, updates are pushed automatically to the client machine. These facts mean that users of Wuala are not safe from possible backdoors in

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

Reviews

* 2007-10-18
Unlimited online storage for free, almost: Wuala , Webware - CNET
* 2008-05-22
Online Storage with Wuala , Linux Journal
* 2008-08-14
Wuala Makes Online Storage Social , News & Opinion , PCMag.com
* 2008-08-14
Wuala P2P online storage service goes live
( Download Squad) * 2008-07-18
You Have Three Days To Check Out Wuala's 'Social Grid' Storage
(

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

)

Notes and references

External links

* {{official website, http://www.wuala.com/ 2008 software Distributed data storage systems Distributed file systems File hosting File sharing services