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Cloud storage and file hosting service From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mega (stylised as: MEGA) is a file hosting service offered by Mega Cloud Services Limited, a company based in Auckland, New Zealand, and owned by Hong Kong–based Cloud Tech Services Limited.[2][3] The service is offered through web-based apps. MEGA mobile apps are also available for Android and iOS.
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 | This article needs to be updated. (April 2024) |
| |
| Original author(s) | Kim Dotcom |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | MEGA Cloud Services Limited |
| Initial release | 19 January 2013 |
| Repository | https://github.com/meganz |
| Written in | PHP, C++, JavaScript, Java, Objective-C |
| Operating system | |
| Available in | 18 languages[1] |
List of languages English, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Dutch, Portuguese, Romanian, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Indonesian, Thai, Italian, Vietnamese. | |
| Type | |
| License | MEGA Limited Code Review Licence (source-available freeware) |
| Website | mega mega |
Data on MEGA services are end-to-end encrypted[4] client-side using the AES algorithm. As a result, they cannot decrypt or view the content, and cannot be responsible for the contents of uploaded files.[5] In the first few weeks after the MEGA launch, various security problems were found that researchers said an attacker could use to gain access to a logged-in user's files.[6][7][8] In response, MEGA started a vulnerability reward program, offering a reward of up to €10,000 for reporting security problems.[9]
There are three types of accounts available; free accounts, paid accounts, and business accounts.
MEGA publishes an SDK,[10] as well as source code of all their client applications,[11] under the MEGA Limited Code Review Licence, a proprietary source-available licence which only permits usage of the code "for the purposes of review and commentary".[12]
The source code was released after former director Kim Dotcom stated that he would "create a MEGA competitor that is completely open source and non-profit" following his departure from MEGA Ltd.[13][14]
MEGA was launched by Kim Dotcom in 2013 as a cloud service and successor to Megaupload with a tagline of "The Privacy Company".[15][16] On 4 July 2013, the MEGA Android application was released on the Google Play marketplace.[17] Four days later, on 8 July 2013, the MEGA software development kit (SDK) and affiliate program was released.[18]
On 4 September 2013, Kim Dotcom stepped down as Director of MEGA so he could pursue his political ambitions with the Internet Party.[19][20] In a later interview with The Washington Post on 7 September, Kim Dotcom announced MEGA was getting 20,000 signups for the service every day.[21] Furthermore, in 2013 MEGA was receiving about 100 DMCA takedowns per day.[22]
On 26 November 2013, the official MEGA iOS application was released on the App Store marketplace.[23] On 20 January 2014, the official MEGAsync application was released for Windows[24] and on 6 September 2014, the official MEGAsync application was released for Linux.[25]
In January 2016, MEGA announced that the service has 35 million registered users that have uploaded 12 billion files.[26] Later in 2016, MEGA Ltd. released the source code to their client-side software under the Mega Limited Code Review License, a source-available software license, on GitHub.[27] This allows independent verification of the correctness and integrity of the implementation of MEGA's cryptographic model and service reliability.
In 2020, it reached a user-base of 195 million users.[28] This was also its first year turning a profit.[29] In 2021, MEGA added a domain name to include Mega.io and Mega.nz.[30] The .io domain was chosen to reflect the global nature of MEGA which has more than 200 million registered users in over 215 countries/territories.[30] MEGA continues to say that the .io pages are also more likely to be properly indexed by search engines than the current .nz pages, which are often incorrectly treated as only being relevant to New Zealand searches. Later in 2021, MEGA shared their transparency report where they record 230 million registered users storing 107 billion files.[31] Currently MEGA reports over 300 million registered users. This places them as one of the largest personal cloud providers globally.
MEGA's major product is its zero-knowledge encrypted cloud storage. Users can store files with encryption that cannot be accessed by MEGA. This is due to files being zero-knowledge encrypted and users are the only ones who hold their respective keys.[32]
In December 2023, MEGA announced a new product to help users protect their privacy while online – MEGA VPN. Full launch was announced in August 2024. MEGA VPN is available on iOS, MacOS, Windows and Android. This is available in a personal paid subscription and a standalone price.[33]
In November 2022, MEGA launched a backup feature.[34] MEGA Backup is a one-way sync, from the user's computer to MEGA. Once set up, MEGA automatically copies selected folders and files from the user to MEGA. Any changes a user makes to backed-up files on a local drive will automatically be made to the MEGA files stored in their cloud in real time. Additionally, users can view and recover backed-up files that have been deleted from a local drive, and as of 2024, users can recover older versions of backed-up files with a “rewind” feature. This feature is currently only available to paid subscription users.
In December 2023 MEGA began accepting BETA testers into their new "S4" (Simple Secure Storage Service). Initial information suggests that this product will support an S3 protocol compatible API targeting freelancers, startups and individual developers.[35]
In February 2013, MEGA announced it would be expanding into e-mail, chat, voice, video, and mobile.[36] In December 2014, MEGA said it would "soon" launch a browser-based chat service.[36] In mid-January 2015, MEGA launched MEG Chat in beta,[37][38] marketed as a web-based, encrypted alternative to applications like Skype and FaceTime.[37][38]
MEGA Chat has since been launched across all platforms and is available as an end-to-end encrypted chat alternative. This supports chat, voice and video calling.
Over 2022 MEGA launched a new video conferencing product that enables people to have encrypted meetings with up to 100 users. This has been further enhanced in 2023 with the ability to schedule meetings via a calendar feature. In 2024 further features have been launched like waiting rooms, call recording and quality of life updates[39] like muting and audio/video improvements. Raise to speak was also announced as an upcoming enhancement.
On 5 September 2018, it was reported that the extension on the Chrome Web Store was compromised by the addition of code designed to steal website credentials and cryptocurrency.[40][41][42] The original code on the GitHub page was not affected.
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