The long-awaited cloud file storage service from the search giant, the Google Drive, was finally released on Tuesday. As expected, the service will offer 5GB of storage space for documents, videos, photos, PDFs and other files with Google Docs embedded in the service. Users can upgrade to 25GB of space for $ 2.49 a month, 100GB for $ 4.99 per month, or 1 TB for $ 49.99 per month. Upgrading to a paid account, in turn, expands your Gmail storage to 25GB.
Integration with Google Docs brings enhances the functionality of Google Drive, as it offers search options by filtering through file type, owner and other criteria. The service also recognizes text in scanned documents.
The new service was “built to work seamlessly with our experience of Google in general,” says the company. This means that users can attach photos to post on Google + and will soon be able to attach files from other application directly to e-mails in Gmail. The Drive is an open platform and is currently working with developers to allow users to “send faxes, video editing, and creating mockups of sites directly from the drive.” It is hardly a novelty, since the more popular storage service Cloud Files Dropbox, offer similar functionality. The advantages of Google Drive on the Dropbox are evident: the integration of services with an e-mail and the world’s most widely online documentation system - Google Docs. The Google Drive is now available for PC, Mac and Android and coming soon to iPhone and iPad.
While Google Drive is causing a stir because the terms of service will give extensive rights to the company to make use of its archives, it now has another issue that we must pay close attention to: while their applications simplify access and synchronization of our equipment, they could bring safety issues to all our Google accounts.
This is because, files created in Google Docs are not synchronized with your computer, but it just has shortcuts to them. Double click on any of them, opens the default browser of the system and if you have not logged in Google, the program does it for us, without having to enter credentials.
What is the problem? If we leave the tool running in the background and someone has access to the computer, not only can he edit any file, but also allows him to use other Google products like YouTube and Blogger. The session would remain open until someone closes it manually through the web, although the desktop application is closed.
This is something that Microsoft had to deal decades ago, when they integrated existing Hotmail with Windows Live Messenger, offering direct access (but safe) to the mailbox. That is why, in the case of Skydrive, the login screen appears if you are not signed in. Dropbox has a problem similar to Google, but the impact is limited owing to limited products from them.
While Google should pay attention to this detail, showing at least one login screen when you switch to another service in Google Drive, bear in mind that if you allow others access to our computer, there’s reasonable security risk. A good option may be to not save the password in the application but that again could make things complicated.
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