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I wanted zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption and it took me a while to come up with some providers who offered that. When I started looking for a replacement to Google Drive, I knew I was looking for a cloud storage that took the privacy of my data seriously. After using this European cloud for a year, I thought it was time to publish a detailed and honest pCloud review.
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Out of these five providers, I chose pCloud for the reasons mentioned below. In the end, I found just five clouds with zero-knowledge e2ee. The search for privacy-friendly alternatives to products I use frequently led me to look for cloud storage with end-to-end encryption.
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I do not mind paying a premium for privacy. More recently, I have grown vary of relying on ‘big tech’ companies where I don’t like the monopoly and power enjoyed by them. But over the years, I have realised the importance of data. To be honest, I used these services because they are free. I still have Google Drive and iCloud - primarily because they are there as part of my already in use accounts but I don’t store my data on them.
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OneDrive was the first to go, followed by DropBox. Now I use none of these free clouds storages. I even used OneDrive since when it was still called SkyDrive. Similarly, iCloud was present with Apple devices. I also used Google Drive because it was bundled with Google account. I remember signing up for DropBox at least a decade ago and recommending it on my blog which helped me ‘earn’ additional free storage. You would sign up with a service like DropBox or Google Drive and use the free tier to its limit. Log file when attempting to download data from pcloud.A few years ago, I wasn’t any different from anyone else who wanted a cloud storage. Log file of a second instance attempting to upload data to pcloud. Log file when attempting to upload data to pcloud 21:41:47: "DecryptionWorker: Some resources have been downloaded but are not decrypted yet. 21:41:47: "DecryptionWorker: completed decryption." 21:41:47: "DecryptionWorker: d69f7d42f1b7442ab3101fbf9cf6ab80 decryption has failed more than 2 times - skipping it" 21:41:46: "DecryptionWorker: f9e7e97f7d5447748d55c10b1acb1f49 decryption has failed more than 2 times - skipping it" 21:41:46: "DecryptionWorker: 1d3ef47fb59a419bae5f1f6dd8afdf74 decryption has failed more than 2 times - skipping it" At a certain point, Joplin will go into a "sync loop" and the error log will be filled up with infinite instances of this message:Ġ19-11-30 21:41:46: "DecryptionWorker: starting decryption." This can be tested by creating a new Joplin instance, connecting to pcloud, syncing to download all notes. The never completes successfully however several files have been corrupted in the process. I would expect the syn to finish successfully.
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