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The Google Drive App For PC, Mac Is Being Shut Down In March (theverge.com)
Google announced in a blog post today that the Google Drive app for desktop will be shut down. The Verge reports: Support will be cut off on December 11th and the app will shut down completely on March 12th, 2018. Users who are still running the Drive app will start seeing notifications in October that it's "going away," and the company will steer customers towards one of two replacements depending on whether they're a consumer or business user. Google Drive the service isn't going anywhere. You can still access it from the web, smartphone apps, and either of the software options mentioned below. Google now has two fairly new software tools for backing up your data and/or accessing files in the cloud. There's Backup and Sync, the all-encompassing consumer app that replaces both the standalone Google Drive and Google Photos Uploader apps. It offers essentially the same functionality as Drive and works much the same way. And on the enterprise side, Google has rolled out Drive File Streamer, which saves space on your local drive while providing access to "all of your Google Drive files on demand, directly from your computer."
The Drive app is replaced by the "backup and sync" app which does EXACTLY the same thing (plus you can sync directories other than the "Google Drive" one). It has a different icon and name, but it is basically an update, a version 2.0. The functionality is not "going away", if you install the new program is removes and replaces the old one, you don't even need to login again, everything is carried over.
So, what's the problem?
After today's massive Drive outage, anyone who entrusts their important information to these people (or any cloud service, really) has to be brain dead. Mission critical stuff on site. Always.
The Google Drive desktop application is utter garbage for collaborative work. Mis-synced files, missing files, mis-versioned files, corrupted files--it was utterly worthless for anything beyond light personal use.
Here's hoping its replacement actually works.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I have never seen a company so successful at building amazing products with so many smart people working there manage to completely destroy its traction in markets. Messaging, social networking - its like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Complete failures of leadership.
I work at Amazon. Our engineering teams are good, but clearly not quite at the level of Google. But we ship products that do what customers want and we make money in markets. We don't play silly fricking games with "beta" for two years then scrapping products millions of people use.
Then again, we aren't an advertising company where you aren't the customer, you are the product. Ultimately that attitude will be Google's downfall.
The internet is one big giant data-leak, and you can't clean up the mess.
What a horrible place to store anything valuable/confidential.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Backup and sync replacing Google Drive is probably fine for home users. It exists, and people can get on with it now.
But I don't use the Google Drive app for personal files. I use it for my company's G Suite set up. For which they are directing people to "Drive File Stream" - an application that doesn't exist yet (there is an early access program, with a number of restrictions).
It's decidedly premature to announce the end of the Google Drive app, when the replacement for business users isn't ready to go.
That's a rather strange comment when you look at Google's reputation for closing services whenever they feel like it. Google Drive the service and all their other services are likely to go anywhere. If you want a stable service, don't use Google.
You lost that battle in the 90's.
Same way the "GNU/Linux" stuff was always dead in the water too.
Rather than fight against it fruitlessly, just accept it and move on. PC is an architecture and even "Macs" are really just "PCs" now (as is XBox and so on). But that distinction doesn't hold anywhere outside an IT office.
Rather than try to revive antiquated terms (which people killed off when they stopped saying "IBM-compatible), just use the full product name itself if you want to distinguish. A Windows PC or a Linux PC.
But "PC" will mean Windows PC until a certain large company stops making that OS.
Google used to offer revision control under the name Google Code. It no longer does. So which service do you recommend for hosting a private distributed revision control repository? Is $108 per year (source) a good deal?
Private paid Github works nicely if you aren't concerned about using someone else's machines. It's not very expensive and it works alright. I keep my local git repos in a Google drive for enhanced irony.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
That's fascinating. Now perhaps you could explain to us all how the common usage of the term "hacker" is incorrect, and that the proper term is "cracker"?
Please?
Pretty Please?
Redundancy is good And also good.