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Mega (service)

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This article is about the file hosting service. For other uses, see Mega (disambiguation).

MEGA
Original author(s)Kim Dotcom
Developer(s)MEGA Cloud Services Limited
Initial release19 January 2013; 11 years ago (2013-01-19)
Repositoryhttps://github.com/meganz
Written inPHP, C++, JavaScript, Java, Objective-C
Operating system
Available in18 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
LicenseMEGA Limited Code Review Licence (source-available freeware)
Websitemega.io
mega.nz

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.

Data encryption

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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]

Account options

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There are three types of accounts available; free accounts, paid accounts, and business accounts.

Transparency

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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]

History

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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.

Products and features

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MEGA Cloud Storage

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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]

MEGA VPN

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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]

MEGA Backup

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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.

MEGA S4 Object Storage

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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]

MEGA Chat

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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.

MEGA Meetings

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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.

Browser extension

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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.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Mega". Mega LTD. Archived from the original on 20 February 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  2. ^ MEGA Limited Archived 10 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine in the New Zealand Companies Office Companies Register.
  3. ^ Stevenson, Rebecca. "Mega, the encryption company that wants to be everything". businessdesk.co.nz. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
  4. ^ "MEGA". Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  5. ^ Graeber, Charles (28 March 2013). "Megaupload Is Dead. Long Live Mega! | Threat Level". Wired. Archived from the original on 25 June 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  6. ^ "SpiderOak's Analysis and Recommendations for the Crypto in Kim Dotcom's Mega, Part One". Spideroak.com. 23 January 2013. Archived from the original on 31 March 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  7. ^ "A word on cryptography". Mega.co.nz. 22 January 2013. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  8. ^ "Mega's first week - a retrospective". Mega.co.nz. 26 January 2013. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  9. ^ "The Mega Vulnerability Reward Program". Mega.co.nz. 2 February 2013. Archived from the original on 16 June 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  10. ^ "MEGA Software Development Kit". Mega.co.nz. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
  11. ^ "MEGA Source Code Transparency". Mega.co.nz. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2021.
  12. ^ "meganz/MEGAsync". GitHub. 7 September 2017. Archived from the original on 2 January 2022. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  13. ^ "Interviews: Kim Dotcom Answers Your Questions - Slashdot". yro.slashdot.org. 30 July 2015. Archived from the original on 22 July 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  14. ^ "Kim Dotcom promises to launch an open-source competitor to Mega (updated)". Engadget. 31 July 2015. Archived from the original on 4 November 2018. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
  15. ^ Manhire, Toby (20 January 2013). "Mega spectacle at launch of Kim Dotcom's new file-sharing site". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
  16. ^ Stevenson, Rebecca (28 September 2020). "Mega, the encryption company that wants to be everything". businessdesk.co.nz. Archived from the original on 21 February 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2021. Mega, the new company, was launched in 2013. And this time around the company wouldn't pay for popular uploads – depending on being a more traditional cloud storage service ... Mega's tagline is: 'the privacy company.'
  17. ^ "MEGA". mega.co.nz. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
  18. ^ "MEGA launches SDK and Affiliate program". Official blog. 8 July 2013. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  19. ^ "Worried about Kim Dotcoms tweet concerning MEGA? - MEGA". 23 April 2016. Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  20. ^ CEOWorld magazine (4 September 2013). "Kim Dotcom Has Stepped Down As Director of Mega File-Storage Startup". Archived from the original on 11 September 2013. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  21. ^ "Kim Dotcom is still wanted by the FBI. But that isn't slowing him down". The Washington Post. 27 November 2013. Archived from the original on 13 May 2015. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
  22. ^ "Keynote at OSDC 2013". Internet Ganesha. 7 November 2013. Archived from the original on 17 April 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  23. ^ "MEGA". mega.co.nz. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  24. ^ "MEGA". mega.co.nz. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  25. ^ "MEGA". mega.co.nz. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
  26. ^ "MEGA turns 3!". 20 January 2016. Archived from the original on 10 February 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2016.
  27. ^ "Mega Limited". GitHub. Archived from the original on 29 January 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  28. ^ Stevenson, Rebecca (28 September 2020). "Mega, the encryption company that wants to be everything". businessdesk.co.nz. Archived from the original on 21 February 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2021. Hall says the Kiwi company now has 195 million users. In March, when the covid lockdowns happened, user registrations jumped 60 percent almost overnight, Hall says.
  29. ^ Stevenson, Rebecca (28 September 2020). "Mega, the encryption company that wants to be everything". businessdesk.co.nz. Archived from the original on 21 February 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2021. The company has also become profitable in the past 12 months - an important milestone although neither will give details on revenue.
  30. ^ a b "Additional Domain for MEGA: mega.io". 18 January 2021. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
  31. ^ Immanni, Manikanta (22 October 2021). "Mega Cloud Now Has 230 Million Users Storing 107 Billion Files". TechDator. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
  32. ^ "MEGA Cloud Storage: Create a Free Account". MEGA. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  33. ^ "Introducing MEGA VPN: The next step in our privacy ecosystem". MEGA Blog. 11 August 2024. Retrieved 11 August 2024.
  34. ^ "Introducing MEGA Backup". Mega Blog. 23 November 2022. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  35. ^ "MEGA Object Storage: Scalable and S3 Compatible". MEGA. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  36. ^ a b Protalinski, Emil (28 December 2014). "Kim Dotcom's Mega to launch browser-based encrypted video call and chat service 'soon'". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 22 January 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  37. ^ a b Mathews, Lee (22 January 2015). "Kim Dotcom launches MegaChat, the video chat service even Snowden trusts". Geek.com. Archived from the original on 24 January 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  38. ^ a b Condliffe, Jamie (22 January 2015). "Mega Just Launched End-to-End Encrypted Audio and Video Chat". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on 24 January 2015. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  39. ^ "MEGA Product Features Update - June 2024". Mega Blog. 20 June 2024. Retrieved 21 August 2024.
  40. ^ Kan, Michael (5 September 2018). "Mega.nz Chrome Extension Hacked to Steal Logins". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on 23 January 2019. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  41. ^ Cimpanu, Catalin (4 September 2018). "MEGA.nz Chrome extension caught stealing passwords, cryptocurrency private keys". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 12 September 2018. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  42. ^ Nguyen, Chuong. "Hacked Chrome extension disguised as legitimate version steals logins". Yahoo! Finance. Archived from the original on 23 January 2019. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
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