Dropbox, a free service that lets people bring their documents, photos, and videos anywhere and share them, has announced a way for people to instantly share items with just a link. Now documents, photos, and videos can be shared simply by creating and sending a link to friends, family, or colleagues, whether they are Dropbox users or not.

"We're always looking for ways to make life easier and solve the basic problems people face everyday," says Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox. "Sending files has always been a painful process, but now with Dropbox, sharing with friends, family, and colleagues is effortless."

Dropbox links allow people to easily view documents, photos, and videos in a full-browser display without any setup. Business presentations, home movies, and even entire folders can be opened and viewed without having to sign in, download anything, or open files separately.

From the Dropbox desktop, web, and mobile applications, the "Get link" button generates a unique link to a file or folder. The link can then be sent to another person. For Dropbox users, opening a link will provide the option to instantly save the file to their Dropbox. For more info, go to http://www.dropbox.com/links/features .