Google Drive Alternatives: Improving Privacy and Security

[Julio Franco]

In an age of eroding online privacy, many are looking for a good alternative to Google Drive for their documents and files. After all, why would you want to store your private data with the world's largest advertising company?

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2346-google-drive-alternatives/

 

[Geralt]

Very good article. Thanks!

 

[bviktor]

So you manage to pull such an article without mentioning OneDrive : D It's not mentioned anywhere, not once. Even though the family pack has the best value of any offering on the market, BY FAR. GG TechSpot, GG.

 

[rrwards]

So you manage to pull such an article without mentioning OneDrive : D It's not mentioned anywhere, not once. Even though the family pack has the best value of any offering on the market, BY FAR. GG TechSpot, GG.

When talking about privacy friendly alternatives, anything Microsoft should be immediately discarded. I'm glad they didn't include it.

 

[Geralt]

When talking about privacy friendly alternatives, anything Microsoft should be immediately discarded. I'm glad they didn't include it.

Yes, Onedrive is crap, and files are not encrypted on their end.

 

[DZillaXx]

Google Drive is horrible compared to Onedrive or dropbox. The new windows client doesn't help either. Just trash. I don't understand how any businesses justifies google over 365.

Honestly surprised Onedrive isn't on this list. It has been the goto among IT Admins for years now. With Sharepoint being the powerhouse for shared files, and Onedrive for personal files. If you have 365 it is crazy not to use it, Onedrive gives you 1TB of Storage on the cheap.

For Personal, family, business Onedrive is nearly impossible to beat in terms of cost per GB.

And unlike the misinfromation already stated in this post, Onedrive files are encrypered.

"Is OneDrive Encrypted?
Regardless of any optional tools, encryption is still the king of data protection. Although it was initially reserved as a OneDrive for Business security measure, OneDrive now offers at-rest and in-transit encryption as standard for all users and file types.

However, your encryption key stays in Microsoft’s hands, rather than your own. This means that OneDrive does not offer zero-knowledge encryption, even with the OneDrive personal vault."


MS by far is the industry standard when it comes to user security, and nearly everything that needs security management integrates with active directory or azure active directory. As not using SSO for nearly everything you can is a major red flag.

Two Factor on 365 is nearly flawless, why risk data with some random small 3rd party.


Anyone talking crap about Onedrive/Sharepoint doesn't know $hit. Sure something like Dropbox may be a little more user friendly, especially compared to OneDrive when it comes to management. From usability and baked in features when it comes to use with a windows machine and other 365 apps, By far the best option.


Only reason to justify Google Drive is more for just having more storage in your entire google account, mainly for google photos. Which is easily the best platform for cloud storage of photos. Google Photo's just works. And something Apple fails to deliver with their Janky iCloud setup on iPhones. Sure it works fine on a iPhone. Make it not suck from a web browser.


I have many clients that use the Azure AD platform, and Onedrive is where the user's profiles folders sits. We can move to another machine, login, and all their user folders come up as expected. For a business where loss of data is time wasted, Onedrive is second to none. This is something you can even do on your own personal machine.

 

[scavengerspc]

The omission of OneDrive is a mistake.

 

[Geralt]

Google Drive is horrible compared to Onedrive or dropbox. The new windows client doesn't help either. Just trash. I don't understand how any businesses justifies google over 365.

Honestly surprised Onedrive isn't on this list. It has been the goto among IT Admins for years now. With Sharepoint being the powerhouse for shared files, and Onedrive for personal files. If you have 365 it is crazy not to use it, Onedrive gives you 1TB of Storage on the cheap.

For Personal, family, business Onedrive is nearly impossible to beat in terms of cost per GB.

And unlike the misinfromation already stated in this post, Onedrive files are encrypered.

"Is OneDrive Encrypted?
Regardless of any optional tools, encryption is still the king of data protection. Although it was initially reserved as a OneDrive for Business security measure, OneDrive now offers at-rest and in-transit encryption as standard for all users and file types.

However, your encryption key stays in Microsoft’s hands, rather than your own. This means that OneDrive does not offer zero-knowledge encryption, even with the OneDrive personal vault."


MS by far is the industry standard when it comes to user security, and nearly everything that needs security management integrates with active directory or azure active directory. As not using SSO for nearly everything you can is a major red flag.

Two Factor on 365 is nearly flawless, why risk data with some random small 3rd party.


Anyone talking crap about Onedrive/Sharepoint doesn't know $hit. Sure something like Dropbox may be a little more user friendly, especially compared to OneDrive when it comes to management. From usability and baked in features when it comes to use with a windows machine and other 365 apps, By far the best option.


Only reason to justify Google Drive is more for just having more storage in your entire google account, mainly for google photos. Which is easily the best platform for cloud storage of photos. Google Photo's just works. And something Apple fails to deliver with their Janky iCloud setup on iPhones. Sure it works fine on a iPhone. Make it not suck from a web browser.


I have many clients that use the Azure AD platform, and Onedrive is where the user's profiles folders sits. We can move to another machine, login, and all their user folders come up as expected. For a business where loss of data is time wasted, Onedrive is second to none. This is something you can even do on your own personal machine.

A MS executive, evidently. MS is a pile of crap, and everybody knows it from direct experience with their products.

 

[RudyBob]

"In an age of eroding online privacy and increasing corporate surveillance" Let's not put our junk out there to begin with

 

[DZillaXx]

A MS executive, evidently. MS is a pile of crap, and everybody knows it from direct experience with their products.

Their success would disagree. Unlike Apple MS is an actually diverse company with multiple successful product lines. And their Cloud Network is growing faster than Amazon's, which while also another great platform makes Azure look good in terms of administration.

OneDrive just simply works, Period. Version History, Sharing, Storage usage is simple and easy and nearly always just a rightclick away.

Only thing MS really lacks is a nice Web Interface for Photo's, like both Google and Amazon has.

With google photo regardless if you are a android or ios user, as long as you are using google photos for syncing getting them onto another device is simple.

Go to the google photo's website and you got you photo. And the interface is great. iCloud's photos web interface for example is Crap. I'm sick of everything needing to be accessed from an APP.

I've tried many cloud platforms for user data, Dropbox, Box, Google, etc. By far Dropbox and Box have been easy for users. But the one standout is Onedrive, if you are using windows (which is a given for 99% of people) there just isn't a better option.

I do have a few customers using chromebooks, but really not a fan for business use. They are decent little machines for a cheap personal laptop, but even in school these machines are such second rate machines pushed by Entry Level Network Admins from a pure lack of experience.

 

[Nobina]

Best thing to do is to keep sensitive data away from any cloud service. I just keep things I can afford to lose or it's not private so I don't have to worry about switching to other privacy focused services.

 

[Geralt]

Their success would disagree. Unlike Apple MS is an actually diverse company with multiple successful product lines. And their Cloud Network is growing faster than Amazon's, which while also another great platform makes Azure look good in terms of administration.

OneDrive just simply works, Period. Version History, Sharing, Storage usage is simple and easy and nearly always just a rightclick away.

Only thing MS really lacks is a nice Web Interface for Photo's, like both Google and Amazon has.

With google photo regardless if you are a android or ios user, as long as you are using google photos for syncing getting them onto another device is simple.

Go to the google photo's website and you got you photo. And the interface is great. iCloud's photos web interface for example is Crap. I'm sick of everything needing to be accessed from an APP.

I've tried many cloud platforms for user data, Dropbox, Box, Google, etc. By far Dropbox and Box have been easy for users. But the one standout is Onedrive, if you are using windows (which is a given for 99% of people) there just isn't a better option.

I do have a few customers using chromebooks, but really not a fan for business use. They are decent little machines for a cheap personal laptop, but even in school these machines are such second rate machines pushed by Entry Level Network Admins from a pure lack of experience.

Good for you. But, in my case MS has mostly been a thorn in the butt. For example, having to use third-party software to remove all the MS Spyware and other crap from Windows (e.g. Onedrive); troubleshooters which rarely fix something; intrusive Windows updates; bloated Office programs like Word (what a pile of crap); tiresome repetitive sign-in processes if you need to work with some of their services; and a long etc. MS is a pest we have unfortunately to tolerate till someday they can get a real competition.

 

[axiomatic13]

Did encrypting your own files before uploading them to GDrive somehow disappear? Come on y'all?

 

[DZillaXx]

Best thing to do is to keep sensitive data away from any cloud service. I just keep things I can afford to lose or it's not private so I don't have to worry about switching to other privacy focused services.

The cloud is more about mitigating data loss. I don't think most of you know what it takes to really setup a system at home to mitigate from the potential loss of user data. Such as family photo's, etc. You know information that can not easily be replaced.

I have plenty of customers, my office included, that requires financial records to be kept for so many years. This is built right into MS's 365 platform. Even deleted data is held onto for years. This requirement really limits the use of many 3rd party options.

The cost of even a basic proper local data store with redundancy scales up in cost quick. Looking at needing Raid 1 at bare minimum, be software or hardware, just to allow for loss of a single drive while allowing for continued uptime. Along with that you'd need a secondary storage setup offsite. That is kept synced at all times. And even then you are not completely safe. On top of the backbone of the operation you'd want some type of file versioning, either via snapshots or other means. On top of that you'd want to protect your files from long term data rot, which means you'd need a file system built to mitigate datarot from the start. Such as ZFS.

You can have everything I have listed above, and still loose your files....


Keeping your data private even on a cloud service is more of a software issue. There are plenty of tools out there that will take advantage of such cloud platforms and keep your data secure. If you don't want MS holding your encryption key, encrypt it yourself. Same goes for any service.


I love Onedrive/Sharepoint. It is by far the cheapest cloud storage solution and one of the most redundant and dependable, but scaling storage past 1TB gets expensive quick for any option. Not just MS. But I'm all for taking advantage of a service from a dollar standpoint.

If you like wasting money, go ahead. But I'd recommend you stick to what ever makes sense on a dollar per GB scale, as well as convenience.

Too many Brand loyalist on this site. It's crazy how quick people pick up a pitch fork against one brand, yet sign praise another. Just like any product ever made, you should never focus on brand. Focus on the product! Plenty of people on here would rather loose their first born child than be forced to use a non intel gaming computer.

When it comes to important memories such as pictures of your family, I hope most of you are not keeping them on some old HDD waiting to die....

 

[DZillaXx]

Good for you. But, in my case MS has mostly been a thorn in the butt. For example, having to use third-party software to remove all the MS Spyware and other crap from Windows (e.g. Onedrive); troubleshooters which rarely fix something; intrusive Windows updates; bloated Office programs like Word (what a pile of crap); tiresome repetitive sign-in processes if you need to work with some of their services; and a long etc. MS is a pest we have unfortunately to tolerate till someday they can get a real competition.

Sounds like user error to me.

I manage over 1000 users. If I didn't force things like two factor, most users would have no login on their PC's. While storing all passwords in chome on such machines. Using basic passwords that can easily be gained by simple fishing techniques. It's crazy how many people are willing to enter their password on a email that asks them to open a sharepoint shared file....

MS isn't going anywhere.

Also Word can run on a toaster... If you want to see Bloated, talk to autodesk.

MS has made my life hell plenty of times. Hell the KB5006670 update from a few weeks back wreaked havoc on network printers. Fun times.

 

[brucek]

This is an article on privacy and OneDrive does not offer any version of the service in which Microsoft does not have full access to the contents of your files. OneDrive may be good at many other things but it doesn't meet the most basic qualification for being in this list.

Microsoft has frequently been featured in articles on abuse of user trust, such as for their Windows 10 user agreements giving them broad rights for scanning on your own machines and backhauling content to its own servers, and in the Snowden leaks for being an early and enthusiastic participant in the NSA mass spying systems.

 

[wiak]

What google read your files? every single cloud provider does that or they get sued by the MPAA/RIAA for copy infringement etc, also if you want to be able to search your files the samething applies

 

[Buhaj]

MS is a pile of crap, and everybody knows it from direct experience with their products.

I have a different opinion, I've been happy with MS products, so it's not "everybody", but I understand it makes your message seem stronger.

I've been testing alternatives as well, but seeing a company I work for keeps confidential information on MS servers, I gave it a rest and went with M365. Add cryptomator to that for any data I want to keep confidential as well.

 

[Geralt]

I have a different opinion, I've been happy with MS products, so it's not "everybody", but I understand it makes your message seem stronger.

I've been testing alternatives as well, but seeing a company I work for keeps confidential information on MS servers, I gave it a rest and went with M365. Add cryptomator to that for any data I want to keep confidential as well.

I was speaking "in general". Should I specify this always?

 

[Buhaj]

I was speaking "in general". Should I specify this always?

Then write "in general", not "everybody". Simple as that.

 

[cwhiten]

THANKS! This was a very informative and helpful article! Great site too! One of my favorites

 

[kenny loris]

In the current age where remote working is still a norm. It is crucial that an individual has secure access to one's belongings. For this numerous measures can be taken such as using a VPN, sharing passwords through different password managers, and taking regular backups just in case. I think that omitting google docs would be hard choice to make. The convenience one get is just not replaceable.