The term "sideload" was coined in the late 1990s by online storage service idrive.com as an alternative means of transferring and storing computer files virtually instead of physically.[2][3] In 2000 idrive applied for a trademark on the term.[4] Rather than initiating a traditional file "download" from a website or FTP site to their computer, a user could perform a "sideload" and have the file transferred directly into their personal storage area on the service. Usage of this feature began to decline as newer hard drives became cheaper and the space on them grew each year into the gigabytes and the trademark application was abandoned.