Because Kerika uses peer-to-peer networking rather than the traditional client-server model of communications, you can share large files with friends and colleagues that would otherwise be impossible pass around, because most email systems – even those that offer virtually unlimited storage – place limits on the size of individual emails.

Here's how it works with Kerika:

• If you want to share something with another Kerika user who is online, Kerika will try to send your files (and other messages) directly from your computer to your buddy's computer.


• If your buddy is online, but cannot be reached directly because she is hidden behind a firewall, Kerika makes use of a relay server, located at our data center, to act as an intermediary between you and your buddy.


• If your buddy is not online, you can use the public storage server that we maintain at our data center, or you can set up your own private server if you want greater privacy.

• Large files are broken up into smaller chunks, of about 1.6MB in size each, and sent one by one.


• Once all the chunks arrive at the destination, Kerika pulls them together to bring your original file back to life, and you get a notification that something new has arrived for you.

The bottom line: Kerika lets you share much larger files (up to 50MB should be OK, maybe more if both the sender and the receiver are online and fast Internet connections) than you can hope to send by email, and it does so much faster than other mechanisms like MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, or Skype.

But please note that we have absolutely no desire to attract the song-swapping or bootleg- sharing crowd. This is a legal service and intends to stay that way: if you use our servers to swap songs or videos we will kick you off, log your IP address, and report you to your ISP. Enough said.