Updated Online storage provider FreeDrive.com has closed its public file sharing service.

FreeDrive.com, which offers individuals with 50MB of free online storage in return for exposure to advertising, yesterday emailed customers to inform them that the service - or at least the part that lets users share their virtual hard drives with others - had been suspended.

"We at FreeDrive have determined that significant abuses of our Public Share utility are occurring by individuals who are selling illegally obtained software to others," wrote David Falter, FreeDrive's president and COO.

"In an effort to co-operate with software publishers and the United States Department of Justice, we have elected to halt, for the foreseeable future, ALL use of the Public Share utility," he continued.

Indeed, a quick search found instances of sneaky warez distributors posting access details for their FreeDrives apparently stuffed full of swiped code.

Falter expressed his regret at the "inconvenience" FreeDrive's move may have caused his customers.

But what of FreeDrive itself? It's Web site, which had vanished this morning, is now back up, and presumably all the links from affiliates we tried earlier are now active again. However, so is the public share feature. Ahem... ®