I've been looking at file hosts on occasion, and for a few minutes at a time, to try to decide which would be the best if I were to upload some random image or document to distribute it en masse. I've always been a big supporter of a Texas based free host called Mediafire.
Though their record for data integrity and problems with being able to download files isn't all that great, they have a very generous free download policy, allowing users to download an unlimited amount of files at one time, and placing no restrictions on bandwidth.
The limitations are almost non-existant. Files are restricted to 100MB, but split archives are allowed. One of the main problems, though, is the inability to upload encrypted archives, which led me to perform a test out of curiosity. The policy is explained here. (quoted below)

Mediafire: 'Why can't I upload password protected archives? Wrote:For free users, MediaFire does not allow uploads of password protected archives because of continued abuse from users who were using them to hide content that violated our Acceptable Use Policy and/or Terms of Service.

This is the error I recieve if I was to try to upload an encrypted RAR file:


So I decided to try and work around this by uploading the same archive within another non-encrypted archive.

Here is a link to the file I uploaded for my test. The password is "123".


So much for Mediafire's great protection against people who might violate their Acceptable Use Policy. I don't think my file has been taken down yet, though it has only been a few minutes. We'll see...

In my opinion, a lot of people seem to be entirely too fond of hosts like Rapidshare, Hotfile, etc.

Do you know of any great file hosts?