[prirun]

I released the first version of HashBackup in November of 2008, mainly because the subject was complex enough to remain entertaining for me. My original vision was to create an online backup service with my business partner at the time, but he wasn't that interested. So instead of doing a full-service backup offering with storage and all that, we parted ways and I focused on a client-side backup that stored backups on any online storage service.

It has been a very educational journey and remains interesting to me 18 years later - longer than any other project I've worked on. I've had thoughts about commercializing it over the years, but as has been mentioned, navigating online payment services, making a fancy portal, testing it with several browsers, etc. is not that interesting to me: the programming details are the interesting part.

HashBackup has always had a quarterly expiration date built in to the backup portion in case I did decide to commercialize it or a company wanted to acquire it, but recently I decided to ditch that idea and removed the expiration date. I've recently had some health issues that are going to cost society a not-insignificant amount, so letting HashBackup remain free is a way for me to feel like, in a small way, I'm paying it back a little.