GMail Drive Shell Extension

krmpradeep writes "GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google GMail account, allowing you to use GMail as a storage medium. GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to."

Comments

Nice, but doomed

[BristolCream]

This won't last long. One of the reaosns Google and others can offer so much space is that they're confident that it won't be used.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[polecat_redux]

This won't last long.

They may have tolerated the concept if it had remained within the realm of Linux, but now that the Windows floodgates are open, I suspect that they will put an end to this very quickly.

Re:Nice, but doomed

[jeffb]

I wouldn't hedge my bets. It is, after all Google -- they have a lot of machines (worldwide), networked together by a solid infrastructure (that many of us could only dream of) and all other things considered, disk space is pretty inexpensive.

Then again, even though there may be no problem with everyone fully utilizing the space that's available, Google may take offence at you violating their TOS in order to do so. :)

Re:Nice, but doomed

[strider44]

actually I think the volume of people who would actually use this is larger in linux!

Re:Nice, but doomed

[anthony_dipierro]

disk space is pretty inexpensive

Disk space is pretty inexpensive, but the kind of bandwidth this filessystem will likely use isn't. I'm sure google is already spending more on bandwidth than hard drive space. With people transferring all these files without even looking at an ad, it's bound to cost them a lot of money.

Re:Works as advertised

[ebooher]

While I will admit that the concept of having a drive on your desktop that lives somewhere other than your local machine is neat, it isn't really a stretch of the technology, is it?

I mean, Apple has had iDisk since even before Mac OS X came out on the scene, I was using it to keep my documents synced at school when I was still using Mac OS 8 (I think.... may have been early 9)

Also, I *know* there was another "freebie" website a couple of years ago that did something very similar that allowed you to connect to their storage via a drive icon in My Computer on Windows.

And we won't even start on *NIX networked file systems ..... But I think this is going to be a very big gotcha for the service. It will really get some crazy attention now. However, I hope earlier /. posts I saw about "How soon before script kiddies and pirates use this as file repositories" don't start immediately coming true. Kill it before it even starts.

I can see it now...

[MajorG17]

Just wait until someone invites themself for 120 GMail addresses... then 1000... then starts SHARING terabytes of copyrighted data... eah, this may not last long.

I'm amused.

[Awptimus Prime]

I'm having a great time reading this thread. The same people who say things like "I would never run IE" are coming out and acting thrilled about this. What about the requirement of having IE to run this? I guess it is okay when it has something to do with Gmail. Hmmmm.

Selective zealotry at its worse.

Abusing Google?

[adolfojp]

GMail is an excellent web mail service. In fact, it is the best one that I have ever used. They pay for the service and make a profit by pasting ads on their webmail site.

If we use GMail in this fashion, not only are we abusing their trust but also dooming the service and perhaps destroying it.


Cheers,

Adolfo

Re:Abusing Google?

[Illserve]

You'll care if they start charging you for it.

Re:What about the ToS?

[julesh]

Google don't take full rights to your e-mail. You're thinking of hotmail.

Re:For Slashdot Too!

[Anonymous Coward]

> GMail isn't a "public good", it's a marketing
> gimmick created by a company trying to get
> market share.

Tell that to the tens of thousands of people who already depend on gMail as their primary email. What are they called again? Oh yes, the "public." And would you say they regard a huge free email account as something "bad" or something "good"?

There are so many companies who do bad things right and left, and that deserve to get kicked in the teeth. Google continually offers innovative projects that vastly improve the public good; why spend energy kicking them in the teeth, too?

On another matter, the original post about a Slashdot drive was the funniest and most insightful post I've read here in months.