Picasa Web Albums (PWA) is a photo-sharing web application from Google, often compared to programs like Flickr and Zooomr.

It allows users with accounts at Google to store and share 1 GB of photos for free. Users can purchase more storage space, which can be shared between Google services.

Users may upload pictures either via a web interface, Picasa 2.5.0 or later[4] on Microsoft Windows, using the Exporter for iPhoto, the Aperture to Picasa Web Albums plug-in, or Uploader on Mac OS X, or F-Spot on Linux. In both paid and free accounts, the actual resolution of the photo is maintained (even though a smaller resolution photo may be displayed by the web interface), and the original photo can be downloaded.

PWA uses an “unlisted number” approach for URLs for private photo albums. This allows a user to email a private album’s URL to anyone s/he wants; the recipient can view the album without having to create a user account – this is done via an “authentication key” that’s needed to be appended to the URL for the album to be shown. The Picasa help files say that private albums are not searchable by anyone except the user.

On October 11, 2006, the “Test” name was removed, in favour of purely Picasa Web Albums.

No ads are shown on Picasa Web Albums, in either free or paid accounts. The Terms of Service[6] permit Google to use the uploaded photos to display on the website or via RSS feeds, and also for promoting Google services royalty-free.

Picasa Web Albums was first leaked on June 6, 2006. When introduced, it came with 250 MB free space. On March 7, 2007, it was upgraded to 1 GB.

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