Dropbox, but better

Dropbox, but better

Somewhere down the road, Dropbox became synonymous with cloud storage. A good many

among us regularly use it and not just as a cloud storage option, but also as a way to share files or send attachments so that they don’t eat up our inbox quotas. The other advantage of Dropbox is that, being the almost-ubiquitous cloud storage solution, it has now been integrated into a number of apps across devices, letting us save and share files directly.

While cloud storage serves us brilliantly, as with any technology, they are not without their problems. Most of us have wondered at one point or another about the security aspect of keeping personal files in the cloud. Are they safe? Are they private? Are we sure, for instance, that our stuff will be accessible only to us and no one else? Which brings us to the concept of zero-knowledge cloud storage services. In simple terms, this means that your service provider has ‘zero knowledge’ of the data stored in your account and cannot gain access to it.

SpiderOak

(spideroak.com)

SpiderOak is a highly regarded cloud backup and file hosting service, offering zero-knowledge privacy, backup and restore services, sync across devices, password-protected file sharing, and more. When you set up your SpiderOak account, strong encryption keys will be created on your desktop itself, and your password encrypted along with the data you upload.

The encryption keys remain with you, so the SpiderOak folks neither have access to your password nor your files. (This also means that they can never reset your password; so don’t forget it or you’ll never see your files again!) A 2 GB free 60-day trial is available and plans start from $7 (about Rs 500) a month for 30 GB. SpiderOak clients are available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, plus apps for Android and iOS.

MEGA (mega.nz)

MEGA offers an extremely generous 50 GB of storage for free (and more if you pay) and also provides end-to-end encryption: ‘Data uploaded is encrypted on the uploading device before it is sent out to the Internet, and data downloaded is decrypted only after it has arrived on the downloading device. The client machines are responsible for generating, exchanging and managing the encryption keys.’

This means, not only do you need to keep your encryption key safe, if you forget your password, there’s no going back. A MEGAsync client is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux to sync folders across the cloud and your devices. Apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry are also available.

Sync (sync.com)

Sync cheekily describes itself as ‘as easy to use as Dropbox but 100 per cent secure’. Another zero-knowledge storage platform that lets you sync and store your data, share and collaborate, as well as backup and restore, with end-to-end security, it has features for remote logout and remote wipe as well. Sync doesn’t keep your keys or your password either. There are desktop apps for Windows and OS X, and apps for iOS and Android. You get 5 GB free on Sync, but can upgrade, starting from 500 GB for $49 (Rs 3,500) annually.

But I like Dropbox!

All this is not to say that keeping your files on Dropbox is akin to jumping into the pit of doom. Dropbox is clean, simple, easy-to-use and has amazing third-party integration. Edward Snowden might not recommend it for keeping your most prized information, but for most users it is simply convenient. I myself use Dropbox for most day-to-day stuff, plus a zero-knowledge service for data for more sensitive files.

Latest update is | Dropbox Shutting Down Mailbox and Carousel Early Next Year

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Librarian

Khaitan & Co