1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
|
The proliferation of devices in our lives -- phones in our pockets, tablets tucked in the sofa cushion and laptops in our bags -- makes some kind of syncing and sharing service not just a convenience, but a necessity.
Without a way to sync and share files all those lovely little devices are just isolated islands of data.
There are dozens of companies offering to connect your multi-device world. Everyone from Apple to Google to Dropbox to dozens of smaller companies want to host your data.
With so many options which one should you choose?
At this point most of these services offer roughly the same features. There's typically a device-side client that automatically syncs your files to the server, some means of sharing those files and some kind of integration with third-party apps on your devices. The latter is less important than it used to be now that most mobile OSes have a means to pass files between applications.
With similar feature sets much of the difference between syncing services comes down to what happens to your data on the server -- Is it secure? Is it private? Is it under your control or the service provider's control?
Unfortunately, in the post-Snowden world we find ourselves forced to accept that using services like Dropbox or Google Drive means we're sharing our documents not just with friends, family and co-workers, but also the NSA, GCHQ and others in the "Five Eyes" countries.
Some may not consider that a big deal. But even if you think you personally have nothing to hide (are you sure?), your business probably does. Want to share your future plans with your closest competitors? Probably not. But remember, what the NSA can do today, your less scrupulous competitors will be doing tomorrow.
Edward Snowden himself has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/17/edward-snowden-dropbox-privacy-spideroak">criticized Dropbox</a> specifically, calling the company "very hostile to privacy." Sadly, Snowden's criticism applies equally to Google Drive and any other syncing service that only encrypts your data on their servers.
These days probably the biggest difference between data-hosting services is data encryption -- can the hosting service read your plain text files? Dropbox, Google Drive and most other big services all offer server-side encryption, which means they, not you, control who can see your data.
There are other options though, including <a href="https://spideroak.com/">SpiderOak</a>, which, from a user experience standpoint, is more or less identical to Dropbox, but does all its encryption on your machine. That means that, while SpiderOak stores your data, the company has no way to access it -- only you have the encryption keys. So while the company might be compelled to hand your data over, in order to actually view the data any third-parties would need to get your encryption key from you. In the United States that still requires a warrant.
To be fair, if you're comfortable setting up your own encryption setup you can achieve something similar with Dropbox, but this is currently not nearly as simple as it is with SpiderOak.
For privacy and security-conscious users and businesses, SpiderOak trumps Dropbox, Google Drive and others by the simple fact that it actually offers privacy and security.
Another option for businesses and individuals that don't want third-party servers storing their data, regardless of encryption, is OwnCloud. OwnCloud currently only offers server-side encryption (and it's not enabled by default), but so long as you host your own server that means you still control the encryption keys.
The OwnCloud project recently <a href="https://owncloud.org/blog/owncloud-7-released-with-more-sharing-and-control/">released version 7</a>, a major update for the open source, self-hosted alternative to Dropbox, Google Drive and even SpiderOak.
This release brings a new way of sharing -- server-to-server sharing. Previously OwnCloud offered a single folder for sharing -- you dropped documents in that folder and then share them via a link (much like you would in Dropbox or Google Drive). There was not, however, an easy way to share entire folders without creating a user in your OwnCloud app for everyone you wanted to share something with.
OwnCloud 7's server-to-server sharing looks the same on the surface. You create a link to the content you want to share and send it to the person you want to share it with. Provided that person also uses their own instance of OwnCloud, the link you shared will show up as a file, or folder of files, in their OwnCloud instance. They can move it around, put it wherever they like and work with the file as if it were their own.
It sounds prosaic, but consider the following scenario: You have a personal OwnCloud server and your employer also runs an instance. Previously there was no easy way to work with both servers via the desktop client. There are some complicated hacks to get around this, but with the new server-to-server sharing the solution is simple -- just share what you need from work to the home instance (or vice versa) and everything will show up in your desktop client.
For example I have a small, self-hosted instance of OwnCloud for personal documents, everything from stories I'm working on to bookmarks I've clipped from the web to git repos with my dotfiles. I also have all my photos stored on a different OwnCloud instance. Prior to OwnCloud 7 these were entirely separate and I synced each using its own instance of the desktop client. In OwnCloud 7 I simply shared the photos folder with my personal server and now everything is in one place and I only have to run one instance of the desktop client.
OwnCloud's web admin also includes a new feature in list views that shows you which files have been shared and with whom, so even though you don't have to use the "Shared" folder anymore, it's still easy to keep track of which files you've shared and who is working on them.
OwnCloud 7 has quite a few other improvements as well, including a new mobile interface, support for editing MS Word documents in the web-based editor, some new user management tools for admins and more. See the <a href="https://owncloud.org/seven/">release docs</a> for full details.
So which is the best option -- Google Drive, Dropbox, SpiderOak or OwnCloud?
If you don't care about security and privacy then all of these are more or less the same. It's worth pointing out that OwnCloud isn't just a file syncing and sharing tool. It has dozens of other features, including web-based editor and file browsers, RSS reader, Mail server and more. If you want an all-in-one solution OwnCloud trumps the rest.
When it comes to syncing and sharing files OwnCloud has most of the features of Dropbox and Google Drive, but, if you host it yourself, it has the advantage of running on a server you control. That means better privacy and security, however, given its web-based interface and ability to add third-party apps, OwnCloud has thus far shied away from client-side encryption. You can of course do this yourself, but then sharing becomes much more complex.
So, if you reject Dropbox and Google drive for security and privacy reasons you're left with OwnCloud and SpiderOak. Of these two, OwnCloud makes sense when you trust the server it's running on. If you don't have access to a server you trust, SpiderOak makes a better solution from a privacy and security standpoint.
|
