Appropriately named G2G Exchange, the Web-based service does have some drawbacks. It requires users to hand over their Gmail account information, although it can be configured to index only e-mails with certain labels. G2G’s FAQ page recommends that users create a new Gmail login specifically for sharing files.
The process also isn’t exactly straightforward. In order to upload content to share, users must send themselves an e-mail with the file attached, and Google imposes a 20MB limit per message. Alternatively, tools such as Gmail Drive or RoamDrive that interface with Gmail’s API can be used to upload files directly. G2G uses Gmail labels to serve as pseudo directories, and indexes each registered account every 24 hours.
At the time of writing, about 600 users were sharing over 11 gigabytes of files. Because content is located on Gmail, however, downloading is done from Google’s network and not other users.
