iOS is closing the gap on Android. Google absolutely needs to...

[BRAINZ2013]

I think Dr. Dre should be leading Apple now.

Or maybe someone should point their ideas to him cause apple is not a important fact with beats . if you remove what u have .

 

[Slug]

I seen on the news NSA is going through dropbox and looking through peoples photos and videos

They're welcome to look at mine, so long as they leave constructive criticism. As I live outside US jurisdiction I couldn't care less otherwise.

they have seen and arrested a man for storing child porn and other photos and videos of people . this has me to say hmmmmm we not safe

A hosting company has the same obligations under law as an individual. If something is illegal then they won't want it on their servers, a fact that is usually stated in the T&C for the service.

 

[BRAINZ2013]

I feel the same way look Dont touch nothing . they can even leave a hey how you doing to let me know they seen what I got but sneaking Dont touch nor leave any comments if you Dont know me or my friendly photos

 

[AnonGuy]

Yes very true but for some reason I seen on the news NSA is going through dropbox and looking through peoples photos and videos . they have seen and arrested a man for storing child porn and other photos and videos of people . this has me to say hmmmmm we not safe and it may not be you that will delete anything . the dum darn NSA may delete thinking the wrong.

They can hack on your systems with ease. I doubt your firewalls are as good as Google or Microsoft and they had no issues infiltrating then.

False sense of security makes you feel good, but it's still a false sense of security.

 

[mikedt]

They can hack on your systems with ease. I doubt your firewalls are as good as Google or Microsoft and they had no issues infiltrating then.

That was with their cooperation wasn't it though, PRISM surveillance program, same with Facebook. Which is somewhat different to hacking and infiltration I think.

Then there's Photo DNA, as used by Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, which is designed to sniff out and automatically flag suspected child porn and other illegal content you might be hiding on their servers.

 

[Slug]

When all's said and done, it's up to the end user to decide whether the convenience of cloud storage outweighs the loss of ultimate control. I'm fully aware that my content may be examined by service providers, and I'm okay with that.

 

[AnonGuy]

That was with their cooperation wasn't it though, PRISM surveillance program, same with Facebook. Which is somewhat different to hacking and infiltration I think.

Then there's Photo DNA, as used by Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, which is designed to sniff out and automatically flag suspected child porn and other illegal content you might be hiding on their servers.

No the NSA was in Google servers without their knowledge. It's why they redid a lot of stuff and started encrypting their internal network pipes, etc.

I'm pretty sure if they did it to Google they did it to other major tech firms.

And the average consumer doesn't have the equipment and likely not even the knowledge to secure their systems as well as Google and Microsoft.

The weak encryption most have access to is likely already exploited by most governments with a lot of investment in surveillance.

The only way to secure that stuff is to take it offline and that only works if the equipment holding it isn't confiscated.

Eroding people's privacy rights is a legitimate concern, but thinking something is secure cause you set up a home server is laughable.

 

[BRAINZ2013]

Not to be funny love a few laughs and I know this may go off topic but. If NSA is doing all this watching can I ask who is watching the NSA . you know they say the best crook is the one that run the game . so can someone explain the rules again cause NSA do a lot of snooping who snoops on them . or do everyone think that they will tell on themselves:what:

 

[nickdalzell]

The reason I don't depend on Dropbox or Drive is more to do with needing a fast internet connection plus plenty of data allowance if you're unable to get access to dsl or cable where you live and only have mobile Hotspot as the only option. My Cloud doesn't need Internet to stream your movies, music and so on to a smart tv where I would use it most, which is at my home. It offers the ability of cloud storage and no wasted space on my tablets or smartphones. But without the cost to my data plan which Dropbox or Drive is. And good luck using Google drive to stream a 1080p video over 1xRTT. then there's my own personal preference of being in control of my data and having a more cost effective solution. Even if Drive or Dropbox offers 2 TB do you know how much you'd pay for that? Also cloud services have died off before. Ubuntu One is but the most recent example. The only data I put on the cloud is movies and backup of my music. All the rest stays on my many tablets. I'd never trust any sensitive data on any cloud be it online or personal, and would have that backed up to tons of mediums including floppy disk (yes I'm that old)

Until reliable, fast and affordable Internet is available to most of the world I still call the cloud a major failure.

 

[AnonGuy]

The cloud is a pipe dream, IMO. Even in the US in my house if the electricity goes off during a storm Verizon won't save me cause their reception sucks here. AT&T was better but on road trips Verizon wins.

I am in the same boat. Things like Google Drive and Google Photos are practically worthless because of data caps and data coverage gaps. They cannot be dependent upon.

It's used for me as a user experience enabler for me, a way to easier bridge the gap between devices. I don't put stuff only on the cloud because there are situations where it would be totally inaccessible to me, which defeats the purpose of it.

 

[mikedt]

I do use online internet storage for my irreplaceable stuff, like photos and important documents, but I also keep a local copy as well. Years ago I used to burn DVD backups, and kept them at my dad's place. Off-site backups. You never know if all your local copies in the house might be destroyed because of lightning, earthquakes, floods, fire, frost or frippery, or they might be stolen, which can happen to a My Cloud or a Drobo, and if you don't have any other copies anywhere else, you might be SOL. Companies have gone bust because all their records got destroyed in fires, and they didn't have an off-site backup procedure in place.

I don't keep a backup of my music online, because I can always download that again from where it originally came from, Baidu, Xiami, or other legal sources. At home I'm usually streaming music now, and often finding new things to listen to, which I'll download if I like it enough. Actually I do keep an off-site copy of my music, it's in the SD of my phone that's always with me, as well as at home.

 

[chanchan05]

Well, Dropbox can't tell them no I'd think. But IMO why the F would you be storing your porn stash on Dropbox anyway?

 

[nickdalzell]

I used to use the cloud aka Dropbox and drive for transferring files mainly APKs from one device to another vs. A laptop which seemed seriously inefficient. I can still do that and do it faster since I'm not going at 1x speed.

I don't understand this whole 'off-site' malarkey. Statistically the chances of a major disaster destroying data is the same at home or off-site. The chances of your home burning down or being ripped apart by a tornado or even a curious deer wondering through the home don't suddenly skyrocket because you put an NAS drive in there. So your chances of loss on-site and off-site are the same.

 

[AnonGuy]

Not to be funny love a few laughs and I know this may go off topic but. If NSA is doing all this watching can I ask who is watching the NSA . you know they say the best crook is the one that run the game . so can someone explain the rules again cause NSA do a lot of snooping who snoops on them . or do everyone think that they will tell on themselves:what:

The NSA is watched by Congress. There are committees that deal with that.

But it doesn't matter if you're watching someone. If they do wrong and lie to you, unless you can prove they are lying it is what it is.

It's why they call these things secrets. Unless you tell them, they never know the truth and even if they find out the truth the burden of truth is on them to prove that you lied about it (See Lois Lerner issue going on with the IRS right now).

Regardless of how obvious it may seem to be, evidence is always necessary to back up that claim.

 

[AnonGuy]

I used to use the cloud aka Dropbox and drive for transferring files mainly APKs from one device to another vs. A laptop which seemed seriously inefficient. I can still do that and do it faster since I'm not going at 1x speed.

I don't understand this whole 'off-site' malarkey. Statistically the chances of a major disaster destroying data is the same at home or off-site. The chances of your home burning down or being ripped apart by a tornado or even a curious deer wondering through the home don't suddenly skyrocket because you put an NAS drive in there. So your chances of loss on-site and off-site are the same.

I'm not sure how you're coming up with those statistics?

Does it factor in the better power control systems in a data center, which can better prevent a spike from destroying data, or keep power on long enough to safely shut a system down when a computer that loses power in a home would shut down instantly and leave the storage in a volatile state (Can corrupt data more easily)? Even with a short term power source, their systems can be configured to safely shut down when main power is lose, something most people don't have their PCs set to do at home in those home server setups.

Does it factor in the sophisticated Auto Back-Up systems that data centers may have in place, many of which are out of reach of the average consumer and are superior in redundancy?

Does it factor in the better security in place to prevent hackers from gaining access to, tampering with, or destroying data?

Does it factor in the fact that these companies have dedicated staff trained and tasked with dealing with issues that may pop up basically 24/7?

Housing data in house works for the vast majority of people, but the chances of the data being safer from corruption, tampering, and outright being destroyed is much better in Google, Microsoft, or even Dropbox's data centers.

99.9% of at-home setups can't even began to compare to what these companies have built and implemented.

 

[bjacks12]

I used to use the cloud aka Dropbox and drive for transferring files mainly APKs from one device to another vs. A laptop which seemed seriously inefficient. I can still do that and do it faster since I'm not going at 1x speed.

I don't understand this whole 'off-site' malarkey. Statistically the chances of a major disaster destroying data is the same at home or off-site. The chances of your home burning down or being ripped apart by a tornado or even a curious deer wondering through the home don't suddenly skyrocket because you put an NAS drive in there. So your chances of loss on-site and off-site are the same.

They are the same. But the chances of BOTH happening at the same time is significantly smaller. That's the whole point. Something could happen to your on-site stuff, but you have it off-site too. Nobody has claimed storing it on the cloud will protect your house from burning down.

I don't use my phone the same way a lot of people do. I might occasionally stream netflix on it at an airport if I have wifi. That's a very rare occasion. Most of the time, if I want to watch something, I'm sitting at home with a good wifi connection and a TV + Chromecast for streaming. So I don't use my phone for large media consumption. I keep enough music on it to get me through stretches without internet access. I don't need enough music stored on board to last me 3 years. I've probably got 2 GB saved on the phone. If I happen to listen to it all in a week, which is unlikely, I'll pull up Pandora.


I think there are tons of people like me out there that don't rely on 3G/4G for their internet connection. For us, the cloud works great. Save pictures, save homework, save work documents, and work on them elsewhere. It's eliminated the USB drive for me(except in my car).

 

[nickdalzell]

I'm not sure how you're coming up with those statistics?

Does it factor in the better power control systems in a data center, which can better prevent a spike from destroying data, or keep power on long enough to safely shut a system down when a computer that loses power in a home would shut down instantly and leave the storage in a volatile state (Can corrupt data more easily)? Even with a short term power source, their systems can be configured to safely shut down when main power is lose, something most people don't have their PCs set to do at home in those home server setups.

Does it factor in the sophisticated Auto Back-Up systems that data centers may have in place, many of which are out of reach of the average consumer and are superior in redundancy?

Does it factor in the better security in place to prevent hackers from gaining access to, tampering with, or destroying data?

Does it factor in the fact that these companies have dedicated staff trained and tasked with dealing with issues that may pop up basically 24/7?

Housing data in house works for the vast majority of people, but the chances of the data being safer from corruption, tampering, and outright being destroyed is much better in Google, Microsoft, or even Dropbox's data centers.

99.9% of at-home setups can't even began to compare to what these companies have built and implemented.

Tell that to the Ubuntu One users who's data was wiped when the service went belly up which is too often the case with online clouds. Which is why I won't trust Google or anyone else with my data. Besides I hate the idea of Google especially perusing my MP3 collection for possible copyright issues. We all know their policy of YouTube videos with just a radio playing in the background....

 

[mikedt]

Tell that to the Ubuntu One users who's data was wiped when the service went belly up which is too often the case with online clouds. Which is why I won't trust Google or anyone else with my data. Besides I hate the idea of Google especially perusing my MP3 collection for possible copyright issues. We all know their policy of YouTube videos with just a radio playing in the background....

Same with Apple iDisk, Apple pulled the plug on that as well. Might the same with iCloud as well eventually, if and when they discontinue it.

Don't just rely on keeping it all online with just service, and other other hand I wouldn't keep everything at home either, all in one place, in case someone steals the hard drives or My Drive or Drobo or whatever, or the place burns down, can lose everything. I wouldn't unload MP3s anyway, because most of them were downloaded in the first place, and can always be downloaded again. Not exactly irreplaceable, unlike irreplaceable photos or video clips or documents or something.

 

[nickdalzell]

Depends on whether or not the service used to download your entire MP3 collection is there when you decide to download them again (cough MP3.com gag Napster)

Honestly my music is merely synced to My Cloud so I can use the dlna feature to stream it at home across devices without eating my data plan. I also have it synced on all my devices and prefer them local as I don't get good enough coverage outside home to play them online and then there's data again. I want my entire collection available should I choose to play it and not have to chew through my plan.

I know it's hard to believe, but there are some of us who cannot get dsl, cable or even dial-up and are only able to get online via our cellular data plans.

 

[mikedt]

Depends on whether or not the service used to download your entire MP3 collection is there when you decide to download them again (cough MP3.com gag Napster)

Wasn't MP3.com shut down and/or sued by the RIAA, and is now owned by CBS? Yeh..I remember the legal Napster service, after the illegal one was shut down...DRM'd WMA. I was using AllOfMP3(Russian) at the time, and some of my songs are still tagged as "AllOfMP3"...LOL. Couldn't really use much else, because most of the other online music services were United States only at the time. Don't think that Baidu is going away any time soon though, it's very popular. I got all my music on a 64GB SD on my phone anyway, that constitutes an off-site backup as my phone is always with me, as well as having another copy at home. :thumbup:

Honestly my music is merely synced to My Cloud so I can use the dlna feature to stream it at home across devices without eating my data plan. I also have it synced on all my devices and prefer them local as I don't get good enough coverage outside home to play them online and then there's data again. I want my entire collection available should I choose to play it and not have to chew through my plan.

I know it's hard to believe, but there are some of us who cannot get dsl, cable or even dial-up and are only able to get online via our cellular data plans.

I've been in that situation many times, especially here. Fortunately now I've just moved to a new place and have now got nice fast fibre to the apartment, but that's only at home though of course. Often I'm streaming at home, usually finding new things to listen to, and maybe download them sometimes.

 

[bjacks12]

Tell that to the Ubuntu One users who's data was wiped when the service went belly up which is too often the case with online clouds. Which is why I won't trust Google or anyone else with my data. Besides I hate the idea of Google especially perusing my MP3 collection for possible copyright issues. We all know their policy of YouTube videos with just a radio playing in the background....

Which is why you should never rely on on ANY ONE THING as a backup. That's just something to live by. But if I have the choice between only keeping my stuff on only my laptop and keeping it on both my laptop and my cloud, I'm going to choose both. It adds another layer of protection against loss. The odds of Google Drive being shut down in the near future are not very high. But if they do, they'll give a warning and I'll move it somewhere else. But having the ability to keep my stuff through a laptop failure(as happened to me in March) is very nice. I just turned on my new laptop, downloaded Google Drive and signed in. BOOM. Everything was back(after a few hours to sync all the data, lol).

You use the phrase "I know it's hard for some people to understand x point of view". That goes both ways. Yes, you have your situation. And your point of view is perfectly valid. But not everybody is in your situation. You should understand that there are a lot of us who find cloud services to be valuable. That's the beauty of Android. Different choices for different needs.

 

[nickdalzell]

just for the record, 95% of the planet is in 'my' situation, where perfectly stable internet and affordable internet at that, isn't available to 90% of the places you go, or where you live. unless you live in a large city where it's easy to get stable internet that is, or tons of public wifi hotspots in stores and coffee shops, various other places which just don't exist here. the majority of the world sees the cloud as a 'failure' and for the most part, so do i. The infrastructure is just not there yet to support it. it's not affordable to most people either who rely on data plans or can't stay at home and lose their media when leaving the house. it's where the Apple Newton was in 1993. ahead of its time. i remember the droves of people claiming 'the Newton's second coming!' in 2007 with the release of the iPhone. but at that time the world was more ready for a new device. try smartphones during the PocketPC era it wasn't pretty.

 

[bjacks12]

just for the record, 95% of the planet is in 'my' situation, where perfectly stable internet and affordable internet at that, isn't available to 90% of the places you go, or where you live. unless you live in a large city where it's easy to get stable internet that is, or tons of public wifi hotspots in stores and coffee shops, various other places which just don't exist here. the majority of the world sees the cloud as a 'failure' and for the most part, so do i. The infrastructure is just not there yet to support it. it's not affordable to most people either who rely on data plans or can't stay at home and lose their media when leaving the house. it's where the Apple Newton was in 1993. ahead of its time. i remember the droves of people claiming 'the Newton's second coming!' in 2007 with the release of the iPhone. but at that time the world was more ready for a new device. try smartphones during the PocketPC era it wasn't pretty.

When you say 95% of the planet, are you referring to the large quantities of people in 3rd world countries who lack internet access? Because I somehow doubt this first-world problem applies to them when they're more worried about eating for the rest of the week.

When I'm out of the house or away from work, I'm not generally concerned with being able to watch movies on my phone, because it usually means I'm spending that time with friends, family, or just getting away.

 

[mikedt]

When you say 95% of the planet, are you referring to the large quantities of people in 3rd world countries who lack internet access? Because I somehow doubt this first-world problem applies to them when they're more worried about eating for the rest of the week.

When I'm out of the house or away from work, I'm not generally concerned with being able to watch movies on my phone, because it usually means I'm spending that time with friends, family, or just getting away.

#firstworldproblems

I think many of them in third world countries might be more concerned about where their next meal is coming from than Verizon's limited data plans.

 

[AnonGuy]

Tell that to the Ubuntu One users who's data was wiped when the service went belly up which is too often the case with online clouds. Which is why I won't trust Google or anyone else with my data. Besides I hate the idea of Google especially perusing my MP3 collection for possible copyright issues. We all know their policy of YouTube videos with just a radio playing in the background....

A service going belly up isn't even comparable why are you even mentioning that. It is not like they didn't allow them to migrate their data off. They're data was not wiped out the was you seem to be implying. Ugh...

http://blog.canonical.com/2014/04/02/shutting-down-ubuntu-one-file-services/

That wasn't a catastrophe or data breach. It was a company that can't afford to run these services shutting them down, something anyone with a clue could have predicted. Canonical is not Microsoft or Google.

Apple allowed users to migrate data off, as does any company that willfully shuts a service down. That is not the same as what we were talking about. Don't move the goal post.