h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Google Drive appears to be Google docs on steroids. It has 2.5 times the storage of Dropbox. It is billed as a convenient cross-platform cloud storage solution.

Other than the rather obvious potential for evil, what's the downside?

I installed it and had to find that I now have my google docs in a folder on my PC. I mean, hello? Maybe I don't want everybody who uses my PC to have access to my google docs? And once you open (or sign in to) the cloud, you cannot sign out again. I'm not going to use it much, I guess. I don't have anything on my PC or in my docs which is secret, but it's the principle. I want to decide who can and who cannot see my docs, thank you, google.

I am quite happy with googledocs, as we use them constantly for planning. I just opened them this morning and there is a notice which say "Google docs will soon be upgraded to Google Drive"

Google docs is free and works, so I don't see I can complain. I would like to find out more though?

I'm not going to download the thing. I put the stuff on (in?) the cloud to stop them from cluttering my harddrive. I have dropbox too, and I have to say it's easier to browse. And no document format issues.

When you say it's 2.5 times the size of dropbox what does that mean?

Is it 2.5 times the size for the free storage or 2.5 times for all size limits (i.e. for paid cloud storage too)?

I ask because I pay for the intermediate size dropbox and if I can get a lot more for the same money...

Don't worry, I just looked it up - 100 GB for $9.99 a month - that's a lot cheaper than dropbox.
I'm not sure though given the comments above. Maybe I'll wait to see if dropbox compete on price...my guess is they'll be forced to.

I tested it some more today and was horrified: when I opened it and clicked the link to the web it opened my google docs without asking for a password - so from there I could open my emails, too! I went into the preferences to look if there is an option that makes google ask you to sign in. There is: 'disconnect from account'. So I did that now (it put all the docs which it had synced with my PC in the bin.).

So if they're not going to change that I can't see myself using it.

I expect they'll iron that stuff out.

But I shall wait till they do...

Bel - you need a google account to use googledrive (logical enough)

You need a google account to access your gmail and google docs

Surprise surprise, they're the same account... If you're logged into googledrive then of course you'll be logged into your gmail account.

If you want stuff kept confidential you can always untick the 'start google drive automatically when you start your computer' option

Oh, and rule one - If you want something confidential _do not_ put it anywhere near the cloud/internet...