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GMail Drive Shell Extension

Posted by michael on from the oh-the-horror dept.

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."

82 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder if they'll try to license Mac by ebooher · · Score: 3, Funny

    Makes me wonder if they will try to license the Apple iDisk format for this as well for Mac users. I wouldn't mind having a 1 Gig internet drive to access files from home, work, and school without the need to carry DVD's around.

    --
    "Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
  2. For Linux too! by x4A6D74 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-files ystem/gmail-filesystem.html

    Haven't tried it yet; I keep meaning to but school keeps getting in the way.

    1. Re:For Linux too! by Hobadee · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I tried it. I added it to /etc/fstab (not automounting). I never use it. Why? Simple. It takes to flipping long. When I was all excited and playing around with it, I stuck a text file that said "Hello World" on it. I did an "ls". 30 seconds later I got the response from "ls". I then catted the file. Again, at least 30 seconds before it came back with anything. It is incredibly horribly slow - and this was with a recent version. (1-2 weeks ago)

      I don't see how this is "news" at all - this has been around pretty much since Gmail went beta.

      --
      ...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
  3. Nice, but doomed by BristolCream · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Nice, but doomed by robot+captain · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't see how it could be doomed. So long as google doesn't implement a maximum file size to incoming e-mails, what would prevent anyone from sending an email to a gmail account with a large file to leave on the google system for any period of time?

    2. Re:Nice, but doomed by polecat_redux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Nice, but doomed by Sneeper · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually Gmail *does* have a file size limit to incoming e-mails. As one person on the GMAIL Drive Forums states:

      It appears that Google has put a file size limit on "attachments". I've installed GMail Drive and tried a couple quick uploads. One was a tar.bz2 file that weighs in at 23MB. After dragging the file over to the GMail Drive window, it worked for a while then returned an error message stating that "File is too big. GMail does currently not support files larger than 10 Mb."

      The response confirms:

      Great point Steve. GMail does have an attachment size limit which does limit the usefulness of these file system extensions. One solution would be to handle file splitting in the tool.

      I don't have a gmail account, but anyone who does should be able to easily confirm this.

    4. Re:Nice, but doomed by jeffb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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. :)

    5. Re:Nice, but doomed by wibs · · Score: 4, Informative

      yup, 10MB max attachment size. the help page for attachments also mentions that the encoding is so bloated that attachments of 6MB might hit the size limit, too (alright, they didn't use the word "bloated" but it seems a little absurd to me).

      --
      If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
    6. Re:Nice, but doomed by PayPaI · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, it's not really absurd. Base-64 encoding increases file size by something like 3/2. If you do not use base-64 encoding, then your files may become corrupted in transit.

    7. Re:Nice, but doomed by sik0fewl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They already have a cache of the entire [public] Internet. What makes you think they can't handle this?

      --
      I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
    8. Re:Nice, but doomed by eMartin · · Score: 5, Funny

      They might have even tolerrated the few Windows users that would actually use it, but now that the Slashdot floodgates are open...

    9. Re:Nice, but doomed by renoX · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's why the yencoding format was created: to have a lower increase..

      But I don't think that it will replace base64 anytime soon, unfortunately.

    10. Re:Nice, but doomed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      A byte is technically 0-255, and base-64 basically utilizes 6 out of 8 bits of the byte. (0-63, only using A-Z,a-z,0-9,and two others)
      Therefore anything base-64 encoded will be exactly 25% larger than it not.
      I don't see why they can't store the files as a binary attachment to the e-mail, instead of storing the data inside the e-mail as text, however.

    11. Re:Nice, but doomed by chewy_2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It'd be trivial to implement, you would think - just about every archiving program out there has a feature to split up files. However, I have no doubt that if Google wants to, they'll be able to stop this - even if they just limited the amount of incoming emails to any one account from one IP address, or something similar. If this gains any kind of popularity they probably will stop it, although it'd be interesting to see some kind of varient of this from google (probably paid for, since I can't see how ads would tie in here..).

    12. Re:Nice, but doomed by strider44 · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    13. Re:Nice, but doomed by Alioth · · Score: 4, Informative

      It'll last plenty of time.

      It's impractical to use much of this storage unless you have an OC-45 to hand. The vast majority of people have internet connections with pathetic upstream bandwidth (128K, 256K - occasionally 512K - and very rarely more than that). It'll be fabulous for storing small files you want easy access to from anywhere, but pretty useless for storing large files or large quantities of small files simply due to the time it'll take to upload/download the files.

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
    14. Re:Nice, but doomed by polecat_redux · · Score: 4, Informative

      people tend to view OS bashing as flamebait around here, especially when it really isn't factual or called for.)

      I wasn't bashing Linux (I use it myself). In fact, I was simply pointing out that far less people use Linux (in a home-user context) than Windows - something that is entirely factual. Linux does not possess anywhere near the market share of Windows. This is the reason usage of that app would be more widespread... plain and simply, more exposure.

    15. Re:Nice, but doomed by blane.bramble · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't see why they can't store the files as a binary attachment to the e-mail, instead of storing the data inside the e-mail as text, however.

      Where exactly do you think "binary attachments" are stored - they are part of the email text. email (and specifically SMTP mail) was designed to carry text - MIME and attachments etc. are implemented as specially formatted text within the email body.

    16. Re:Nice, but doomed by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    17. Re:Nice, but doomed by Teppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Storage costs $0.50/G these days, and all drives are faster than network storage. Why anyone would add another piece of duct tape to their Windows box to save fifty cents is beyond me. Cool hack, but that's about it.

  4. Huh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've been meaning to impliment something like this in OS X, but GmailFS uses FUSE, which is Linux only. I wonder how he did this for Windows.

    1. Re:Huh... by julesh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wonder how he did this for Windows.

      Its a kludge. It only works through the shell, the same as Windows XP's "compressed folder" system that lets you do stuff with ZIP files. You have to copy the files locally before you can open them.

      I don't know if OSX supports such a ridiculous concept, but if it does it would probably be easier to implement than a full filesystem.

    2. Re:Huh... by Nermal6693 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I use OS X so that I don't have to know stuff like that :p

  5. Works as advertised by erick99 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Jeeze, pretty amazing. Downloaded the filed, installed it, and was transferring files in less than 60 seconds. No kidding! Files transfer faster than when I email the same sized attachment which is pretty nice. When you click/double-click on the drive it opens like any other drive/folder window and you see the files that are stored there. A free gig of off-site storage. I haven't tried to transfer something bigger than the 10MB attachment limit yet, but I will give it a shot. A great app!

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:Works as advertised by erick99 · · Score: 5, Informative

      10MB limit applies. Oh well, still very cool.

      --
      http://www.busyweather.com/
    2. Re:Works as advertised by ebooher · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
  6. It came out, has thousands of members by zaxios · · Score: 3, Interesting

    and now it's being manipulated with third party tools. Is Gmail going to live its entire life in Beta?

    1. Re:It came out, has thousands of members by ebooher · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Probably, consider that while the product is in Beta they can guarantee that they will make no service level oriented promises. This gives them the opportunity to play around with all kinds of new tech that they may be able to spin off into a money maker while at the same time being able to completely walk away if it melts down.

      --
      "Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
    2. Re:It came out, has thousands of members by metlin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, that's the idea isn't it?

      And Google is doing a brilliant job of it, IMHO.

      Release a product out in the open, let people hack up everything they can that is possible and merely observe and tweak the product without breaking it (come on, "it's in Beta" argument).

      And once the product is reasonably stable, release it as a proper version with all the features and viola! You won't be breaking the system for a while, you've eliminated a large number of potential hacks such as this one and your system is already widely adopted.

      Personally, that's the idea of Beta, and I'm happy that there is atleast *one* company out there who hold true to that principle.

    3. Re:It came out, has thousands of members by lpontiac · · Score: 3, Informative

      Probably. Google News is still labeled "beta".

    4. Re:It came out, has thousands of members by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 2

      Not sure if you've heard this, but Google News is still beta because the lawyers won't let them release a non-beta version. [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040929-425 6.html]

    5. Re:It came out, has thousands of members by generic-man · · Score: 3, Informative

      Lawyers have said that Google News can never be run for profit, not that it must remain in "lawyer-induced beta" like that headline claims. Google News qualifies for Fair Use provisions as long as it is not a for-profit entity. It doesn't matter whether you call it "alpha," "beta," or "Suzy." Google News cannot make money; its entire purpose is to copy little samples of images and news from other companies' web sites.

      Now if you want to start syndicating Google News yourself, Google has some news for you.

      --
      For more information, click here.
  7. Re:slightly OT... by James_G · · Score: 2, Informative

    You need an invite. Try http://www.gmailswap.com/.

  8. Re:slightly OT... by peezer · · Score: 2, Informative

    Um--you still need an invitation in order to receive a G-mail account. it is my understanding that there are plenty floating around. I'm sure there are a few /. ers who would be willing to send you an invite...

  9. It Works by Facekhan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It definitely works, but will probably be made not to work as soon as Google hears of it and you know they read /.

    Still its a cool idea and honestly I would pay a very small fee (as in no more than $2/month) to have a 1GB online drive that was dependable. But I always have my little Sandisk MiniCruzer 512MB so its not like I really need it.

    1. Re:It Works by killbill! · · Score: 4, Informative

      GMX.net has had 1GB (file storage & e-mail) over WebDAV for free for a while now.
      If you have a German or Austrian bank account, you can bump that to 5GB for 3 EUR a month or 10GB for 5 EUR a month.

      Btw the features of their email service just flat out rock. I'm quite sure they are unmatched worldwide. ('been a customer since 98 now ;))

      (I knew all those years learning German in high school weren't a waste of time ;p... Now then, how about you guys give us back the English version you had earlier?)

  10. Cool hack... by mcrbids · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But would you trust it? Would you REALLY want to use a hack on top of something that somebody else provided for free for your mission-critical data?

    Neither did I. What I don't get is the advantage. I mean, using no-ip.com and your average DSL account, you can turn your home computer into an "online storage" at a cost of around around $0.50 per gigabyte.

    Wow. Those google guys are sure being nice! I mean, you gotta love these people, right?

    For a community that seems to love google, this sure seems like a stupid, wasteful, and mean thing to do.

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    1. Re:Cool hack... by rzbx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It makes sense to me. As a business do you not cater to your market? Their market is interested in large email storage, and more. So they deliver. Whether or not it is easy to do, some do not have an interest in doing it themselves. Some want their job outsourced to a company. Not everyone is interested in, or capable of doing it themselves. Not everyone is like the typical slashdot member. Think business when viewing BUSINESS like decisions. Too many submitters here throw out "why" and make their argument yet ignore other points of view. Although the internet is changing business, a business's number one goal is still profit.

      --
      Question everything.
    2. Re:Cool hack... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "But would you trust it? Would you REALLY want to use a hack on top of something that somebody else provided for free for your mission-critical data?"

      Compared to what?

      Compared to the ancient, cheap hard-disk in your computer that's starting to click when you access files?

      Compared to the local disks that you wipe each time you upgrade your operating-system?

      Compared to the CD you just sat on, or the CDs that're sitting in the sunlight?

      Compared to your iPod with it's "steal me" white headphones?

      Or compared to using all of the above, nicely located in the same building for the convenience of thieves, fires, and floods?

    3. Re:Cool hack... by KMitchell · · Score: 2, Funny


      But would you trust it? Would you REALLY want to use a hack on top of something that somebody else provided for free for your mission-critical data?

      Of course not. I'd only put my mission-critical data on RAIGA (Redundant Array of Individual/Inexpensive GMAIL Accounts)

  11. Interesting by Timesprout · · Score: 3, Interesting

    that Google are doing more towards making the network the computer than companies like SUN and Oracle who have been banging on about it for years now but actually achieved nothing.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  12. Tried it a bit... by chrispyman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This piece of software is really nothing more than a nifty hack. It basically sends an e-mail to yourself with the file as an attachment and uses a funky subject format to determine the "Gmail drive" filesystem. It does work, but it can't support files bigger than 10MB. So, nice try for now, but perhaps a feature to "zip & split" big files is in order. That said, don't expect Google to let this app last for that long :-(

  13. Obligatory Slashdot link by fastdecade · · Score: 2, Informative

    GmailFS - The Google File System (August 4)

  14. Wow by downbad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is almost as cool as SlashdotFS.

  15. Other limitations by Leikhim · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems that google won't let you send some file types. I've tried zips and bats, and both types gave me a "Sorry, for security reasons we can't let you send this" error. Next version should rename forbidden file types to work around this. no .inf, .hlp, .dll.... Well, that's as far as I got before my storage medium got slashdotted.

  16. I can see it now... by MajorG17 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  17. I'm amused. by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I'm amused. by julesh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe slightly ironic, but I highly doubt any of them are running a recent Windows system that doesn't have IE installed. Too much shit breaks if you don't.

      I also don't think you'll have to _use_ IE for it to work. I suspect it just relies on some of IE's DLLs, most probably URLMON for making the requests to gmail.

    2. Re:I'm amused. by horza · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      We're thrilled that IE users are able to catch up with what Linux users have had for ages.

      Phillip.

      --
      Property for sale in Nice, France
    3. Re:I'm amused. by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So Linux users have been parasites and breaking Gmail's TOS longer than Windows folks? I'm proud of you all.

    4. Re:I'm amused. by penalba · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's not clear to me why Internet Explorer is a requirement; the download worked fine for me in Firefox. Perhaps confusion between Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer?

  18. Don't be evil by philipkd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    okay, so how does google respond to this.

    I think they just have to throw their hands up and go, okay, fine 1GB virtual drive for ppl, how to best make money off of it?

    Could they analyze your files and serve ads related to it? If you put up an mp3, could they upsell albums related to it?

    If you upload a text document describing to your girlfriend your favorite lingerie, could they flash an adsense for Victoria's Secret?

    If you have an excel spread sheet describing mission-critical CRMs, could they analyze those and start throwing ads related to that?

    --

    Philosophistry

  19. So is it a filesystem? by Chris+Hall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've not got a gmail account, so I can't easily try it and see for myself how it behaves, but the descriptions are rather confusing.

    On one hand, it says that it "creates a virtual filesystem", that it "literally adds a new drive", and that it "acts as any other hard-drive installed on your computer".

    But then elsewhere, it says that it "is a Shell Namespace Extension", and the only usage examples given all require the use of explorer.exe, which suggest that it's not implemented a full filesystem after all.

    So which is it?

    • Does it implement a new local drive, from which files can be accessed using any existing program?
    • Or does it implement a new network drive, so that at least UNC-aware programs will work?
    • Or is it really restricted to force the use of explorer (or other shell-api-using tools) for file manipulation?

    Even if it is restricted in this way, it still seems a worthy project -- but wouldn't it be fairer to warn people first? Or if it's not restricted, how about documenting the ability to e.g. save files directly there from any program?

    1. Re:So is it a filesystem? by imac.usr · · Score: 2, Funny
      I've not got a gmail account

      Thank god, I thought I was going to have to fight off the GMail zombie geek army they're secretly developing all by myself. Stay safe! When the time comes I will call for you!

      --
      I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
  20. Now If Only... by JohnPerkins · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...it had a setting that would let me connect more than one gmail account to one virtual drive... I could use my invites to create more gmail accounts for myself...exponential progression...free multi-tb drive for me!

  21. is this tool safe? by johansalk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1. I'm increasingly alarmed by any tool that requests a username and a password. 2. would google terminate the account? don't they have a rule against third party notifiers?

  22. yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    excite was doing that back in '99. only offered 100 meg, but drives were a lot smaller then and you could setup multiple accounts

    on a slightly more paranoid note

    how many people are actually going to put their gmail passwords into an app like this and HOPE it doesn't forward them (or contact lists) back to some spammer

    post the source and maybe...

    don't even get me started talking about the possiblities for using this type of util as a spam gateway

  23. Abusing Google? by adolfojp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:Abusing Google? by ender81b · · Score: 3, Interesting

      O Noes! What ever will the billionaires do!

      Pardon me if I don't really care how a company's business model depends on how I use their product.

    2. Re:Abusing Google? by rta · · Score: 3, Funny

      You're probably one of those people who thinks that downloading mp3s without paying for them is stealing. Don't you understand that by not paying for the music you actually help the musicians make money by fighting against the record companies?! Oh, also you buy more music as a result.

      This is the same thing. With gmail, google is further tightening their grip on the disk market. Since google has been on the scene the price per gig has dropped by 80%! Manufacturers are suffering. Once google's stranglehold is broken, hard drive artisans will be able to sell reliable networked storage directly to the consumer at a reasonable price and still be able to earn a living wage.

    3. Re:Abusing Google? by Illserve · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  24. An obvoius violation of the Gmail license. by iceco2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Gmail makes money by showing you adds,
    this kind of automated interface is strictly prohibeted. Just like any automated interface to Gmail, If you use Gmail you must not use any automated tool to read your mail and display it too you out of Gmail.
    There is nothing to prevent you from using Gmail as file storage but when you want to access your files you should pay for your privlage by watching adds.

    Me

  25. GDrive? by adolfojp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I just used the program and was simply astonished. Kind of reminds me of the days of X-Drive and such.

    Perhaps Google should launch GDrive and provide a web page from where you can upload files to your account. Ok, don't give 1GB, but I think that 50MB should be enough to carry around your bussiness presentations and college writings.


    Cheers,

    Adolfo

  26. Re:Requires IE... by julesh · · Score: 2, Informative

    I suspect it uses the URLMON COM objects to connect back to the gmail servers. These are packaged with IE, so apps that use them state a required IE version to get the version of these objects they require.

  27. Re:What about the ToS? by julesh · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  28. For Slashdot Too! by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Slashdot-Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Slashdot login, allowing you to use Slashdot as a storage medium. Slashdot-Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Slashdot account using a combination of the read-write Journal pages and the unlimited write-once comment fields. Slashdot-drive enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Slashdot account directly from inside Windows Explorer. Slashdot-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.

    It offers high availability, and unlimited amounts of file storage.

    Slashdot-drive uses hundreds of slash-dot logins mappens in a raid-0/raid-1 fashion to assure low latency and redundancy in case you are discovered. In the event an account is locked or deleted, SLASHDOT drive automaticaly rebuilds lost raid partiions in new accounts.

    Data is stored in ascii-mapping or using the optional stealth-mode which decreaces storage density but improves undetectability by using phrases taken from other posts to encode a data stream,

    The downside is that it essentially destroys a useful public good by filling its pages with gibberish and causing OSDN to bear unacceptable server costs. But who cares becaue you are an arrogant prick

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:For Slashdot Too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      "The downside is that it essentially destroys a useful public good by filling its pages with gibberish"

      And this makes a difference how exactly?

      (take this post I've just made for an example)

    2. Re:For Slashdot Too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      > 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.

    3. Re:For Slashdot Too! by technothrasher · · Score: 2
      Data is stored in ascii-mapping or using the optional stealth-mode which decreaces storage density but improves undetectability by using phrases taken from other posts to encode a data stream

      Heh, that reminds me of the slashdot Markov program I wrote a while back. Here's a small sample output taken from this article's comments:

      But doomed by wonder if it a feature to Windows only takes one is restricted to takes one really plans on your gmail as an easy installation! by but perhaps a hairy reply to school without Google are all their trust also dooming the web - link the relative cost of Linux, but doomed by pages with the bill has thousands of packaging not up and email they analyze those and the Win application to My Computer folder, where can offer so how does google will hit Google don't start immediately coming true. Kill it yet; I will get some people doing that the servers. These are accustomed' - The Google expanding gmail account before storage used the filed, installed in less cross platform version of packaging not like any existing. I wonder if a drive for your current Cool hack... Feed your current Now we won't even "share" folders to mappens in 3. You'll get a bit... I just this is kind of explorer.exe, suggest that lives somewhere other than one hand, it after So which is in this would be quite a setting that whatever makes money and they'll try now.

      Now tell me honestly that makes any less sense than the usual rambling slashdot posting ;-)

    4. Re:For Slashdot Too! by SnapShot · · Score: 2, Informative
      A couple of notes:
      1. Gmail has been marketed as a large repository (1 GB :-) ) of space. People are already emailing huge amounts of photos back and forth. I get a vacation picture from my Mom, I don't even bother downloading it locally. If I want to look at it I just search for the email and press view photo.
      2. Gmail offers a finite amount of space (only 1 GB :-( ). If you start uploading Linux ISO images you are going to fill up your account pretty quickly (whether or not you do it as an email attachment explicitly or through a little shell wrapper).
      3. The agreeement between the user and Gmail is this: you get 1 GB of space and a really nice search capability. Google gets to display targeted advertisements based on the content of your account. If you start uploading Word Docs or other files, I think Google is within their rights to "mine" those attachments to send you targeted advertisements based on those attachments. Fair deal. If your account consists of 1000 files with names like big_titties1.jpg expect to get some interesting targeted ads...
      4. Unlike the satire of the previous post (re: Slashdot mail), filling up your account does not negatively impact other users of Gmail. Nevertheless, the previous post was funny and insightful, I just think your interpretation of this project is a little more negative than it needs to be.
      --
      Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
  29. Re:Web Server by hobo2k · · Score: 5, Funny

    Those crazy guys at google have already done the work for you! Your gmail network drive can be accessed through the web at gmail.google.com!!

  30. Re:Requires IE... by Amata · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm thinking that this may have something to do with just how deeply IE has been embedded into the modern Windows OS. Explorer and Internet Explorer are nearly indistinguishable, each being able to do the functions of the other. So I'm thinking that whatever makes Explorer able to do this is a "feature" of Internet Explorer.

    But that's just a guess, with zero basis in actual knowledge of how this crud works.

  31. The Hell... by Rie+Beam · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Look. Go down to Circuit City, and buy a 60GB Western Digital hard drive. Now leave the computer on when you go out, and setup some sort of SSH program - problem solved. If you have to rely upon an e-mail service for backing up important documents, someone should have removed you from the gene pool many, many years ago. Sheesh.

  32. Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD by Artifex · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I find this to be an abuse of the resources Google has provided. They're going to have to end up making the interface and access more restrictive for all users as a result.

    --
    Get off my launchpad!
  33. Interesting by Britz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of course this is interesting, and shows the talents and ideas that can occur in the world of free/open software.

    But Google is a business and they do need to make money and this would be a surefire way for them to lose money (a load of their storage used up, no way to show their adverts, etc) so if anyone seriously used this I can imagine their account disabled.

    What I want is google officially creating (or officially blessing the ones that already exist) a gmail notifier app for Mozilla. Technically, using the 3rd party ones that the Mozilla community develop are against their terms of service. They already do an official notifier but it's Windows only - a Mozilla based one would be cross platform.
    Googlebomb IE - link the IE homepage to the phrase 'piece of shit'

    Sorry linuxci, I am such a karma whore sometimes, but memory seems short at slashdot:
    http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?s id=119770&c id=10101654

  34. Nice hack, but you get what you pay for! by siliconjunkie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a really cool hack, and has a great "Gee whiz look what I did" value to it. But that's about it. I don't think that it would be practical to start actually using this cool little hack due to the fact that no matter how much you may disagree with the GMail terms of use, they still reserve the right to either

    A) make it so that this hack no longer works (wouldn't be too hard, in fact it will probably break often as GMail is still in beta and under heavy development if you havent noticed)

    or,

    B) simply close your account, no questions asked (don't think that people using this hack wont be EASY to detect to to a profoundly different traffic fingerprint in their logfiles for the GmailFS using accounts).

    I'm not saying you're "bad" or "taking advantage of google" if you use this software per se, what I'm saying is, don't complain when the Gmail account you've filled to the brim with Bangbus videos get's abruptly cancelled.

    My suggestion, for what it's worth, would be: enjoy this for what it is: a cool, neat-o, nifty hack. Period.

  35. others already offer this without hack by F�an�ro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here in Germany we have a free mail provider (GMX) that offers 1 GB (since a few months), for mails AND for files, and you can access them as a file system(link to German site) using the open WebDAV protocol from linux, windows or mac, so no ugly hacks are neccesary. (Konqueror can do that out-of-the-box, I think)

    Also offers free pop and smtp, mail forwarding, and configurable filters

    Interface is in German only, and you have to give them an existing German, Austrian or Swiss postal address when you sign up. (but those could theoretically be found on the net.)

  36. Are you sure? by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I can fully understand the decision if Google decides to crack down on this. On the other hand, stopping the project would be a very bad PR move. After all, it would violate some of the things that Google has found to be true...
    • Democracy on the web works.
    • -- Democracy is rule of the people, right? If the people want this function, why take it away?
    • You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
    • -- Obvious. This would make it much easier to access files and to transfer from one machine to another.
    • There's always more information out there.
    • -- Easier access to files that you've created.
    • The need for information crosses all borders.
    • -- Self explanatory. The information that can be gained by this tool should outweigh Google's need for storage space, supposedly.
    • Great just isn't good enough.
    • -- GMail is great. It can be better if Google allows this.

    Besides...wouldn't this be a case of Google being evil? We know that they can't do that...

    --
    Goo goo g'joob.
  37. If it is possible, some programmer will do it. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Interesting


    "Interesante (Score:0, Troll)
    by Anonymous Coward on 12:04 AM -- Saturday October 09 2004 (#10477597)
    Wow, thats pretty neat."

    How can that be a troll? É interesante, acordo. It's just a first post. Over-rated maybe, but not a troll.

    It is neat. It proves the old adage, which I just invented: If it is possible, some programmer will do it.

    I'm interested in the sociology of this. Is it possible that the executives at Google did not realize that they were offering a free place to put backups of encrypted files?

    That's a suggestion for the Google file system shell. There should be automatic encryption, using a locally stored password. Didn't the Google executives realize that most of the data will not be useful to them, because it will be encrypted? I hope I never see a Google ad for Ö|tè&~1}¥bkä40e)Æ&#243 ;G.

    For many people, safe storage is much more interesting than yet another email account. Of course, everything in the entire world should be free, not just information.

    --
    U.S. Gov.: Borrowing money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 billion.

  38. Requires IE 5 or better? by Tibor+the+Hun · · Score: 2, Funny

    I was under the impression that anything else IS better.
    IE 5?

    Isn't that like saying "our roads support Yugo or better!"?

    --
    If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
  39. Actually, by acariquara · · Score: 5, Funny

    I believe most files posted would be modded at least +3, Insightful...

    --
    Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all