Posts tagged cloud

Review of Tresorit “Secure” Cloud Sync

Reviews 4 Comments

In my quest for some good secure cloud hosting/sync aka Dropbox clone, ive tested and used a lot of diferent cloud sync providers, might as well start posting my findings, today im starting with TresorIT, coming from Hungary, being their main features their client side encription and any folder can be synced.

So lets start with the install, I installed it on a Windows7 Laptop, that went fine and started fine, standard stuff here, i do note that this soft is installed on a very strange place (it installs on AppData instead of Program Files), also it created a ton of .tresor or .tresorit hidden folders, a bit weird but nothing much.

On running its a bit bare with information, username and password (so i assume the client side encription is done with that password) and off it goes, syncing away, however there is no way of knowing what is it doing, also its not as fast as say Dropbox or Skydrive, but the worst thing is that if you turn it off and delete a file and then turn the program back on… it wont retrieve the file from the server… so whats the point here?

That is pretty much standard syncing operation (if the software is not online at the time of the deletion you bring back the file from the server or if there is a new file update the file on the server, you dont erase the file on the server), so basically if there is corruption or you accidentally delete a file, or if you need to retrieve a file from the server online you are screwed, so what are you syncing for?

Yeah as of now TresorIT is pretty much useless, if you want syncing without protecion of data you might as well choose Bittorent Sync, its way safer (cause you at least know more about the security than blindly trusting TresorIT), its way quicker (on LAN its Blazing!!!!) and well if you delete something you are also screwed anyways!

TresorIT Advantages:

  • Stable enough Software
  • A presumption of security

TresorIT Disadvantages:

  • Basically if it stores files in the cloud, yet there is no clear way to access them if you need them (so what the point?!?!?)
  • Lack of information on syncing
  • Not the fastest of the bunch
  • Weird Instalation on Windows 7
  • Contacted Community and Support about issue, didnt get any reply from support >_< meh cryptic organizations dont give a nice vibe!

If you reeeeaaalllllly need to check them out, its TresorIT.com!

Use Mega for Mega Backups

Tech

So Mega is not just for Sharing!

You know Mega! If you don’t, you probably don’t read much tech news, the very much hyped product of Megaupload founder, its basically (at least for now) a Megaupload clone, a filehost, just cleaner and easier to use with encryption built in, so why my glee of Mega?

Well i do backups of everything, from my android to my computers to my websites, backups is just part of everyday life, sure its mostly automated but its one of those things that are important especially when you invested so much time and money on your data, still there are times, especially with my websites that i need some long term storage, my backup box stores about 3 copies of all of my sites and that takes a lot of space, but these copies are rotating so if there is a slight issue, such as creeping corruption or some deleted file, those backups can become useless.

So besides my current setup, i have the need for less used/long term backup storage, but why dont I use amazon s3, amazon glacier or another alternative, thats true, but i want a simple system for backups something i can just, grab a couple of files and load it there just in case from time to time, also old dumps from my android or random files that im sure i wont need anytime soon, its not essential stuff, no need to run another system.

Mega boasts their encryption on the client side (while others like Dropbox and Google encrypt on their side, what that means is if Google or Dropbox wants they can see your files), still as with all these companies its a matter of trust, if you trust these companies to do what they say they do, however for this particular case all my site backups are encrypted and compressed so its a mute point although still a point for Mega.

Mega is just a plain better filehost, its super simple to use, the files are backed up (at least in 2 places), the uploads go without any problem (compared with Dropbox or Box or Gdrive web uploads that do hang up from time to time), the files stay forever (at least that’s the official policy), there is no filesize restrictions even though most backups are only 100Mb or so, there are some that are 1 or 2GB in size, no problem with Mega, and if i ever need to download, its blazing fast, enough said! Im sold and so should you!

Just as a broad comparison why Mega is better than most other filehosts:

General Filehost – No security, no reliability and a tendency to lose your file in a whim.

General Webhost – Better reliability but again no security, and they tend to not like you hosting big files.

Rapidshare – They change their policy constantly and its always for worst, i was their paid customer for 2 separate times and both i got screwed, never again.

Mediafire – They say they are a cloud hosting company, but well they dont guarantee that files are kept, only if a file is popular, unusable for any kind of reliable file hosting.

Dropbox – Great and reliable if you pay them, if you dont pay them you are a second class citizen, also their service only works great with their desktop client, no point.

Skydrive – They scan your files, that says it all, plus, can you trust Microsoft?

Google Drive – They want a perpetual license for all your files, plus, can you trust Google?

As a sidenote…

Box – Actually pretty good, my account with them is several years old and i never lost a file, still they have a pretty stiff filesize limit of 250Mb, so not ideal for what i need, but outstanding for small files backup!

PS: Cant wait for Mega Sync Application for Windows/Mac/Linux!

Dropbox Clone Copy Launches

News

Yeah i know this could be seen as a infomercial so you guys will click on my Copy referral link (and we both will get 5GB for free), but i am very interested in cloud hosting and i do try a lot of them, i use it daily for my backups, for business and for sharing (i’ll make another post later on with more details), so testing new cloud storage is important to me, since i do have some issues with the ones i use currently.

My Cloud Providers

Dropbox (Free 20GB) for syncing of work material, its absolutely flawless, but it tends to bog down from time to time (burst of CPU) and also although secure its not encrypted and i know i could do it myself and in some ways i do, but with encryption on my side there is a risk of corruption and data loss, so i avoid putting there anything that is really private, mostly work files, stuff i need on the run or that im currently working on! (Update a day or so after posting this, Dropbox decided to cut a chunk of my referrals, wtf is with that after years! they go back on referrals! thats fucked up, ill probably make a post about it tomorrow, but for today they lose their link on this post and worse, my trust).

Box (Free 50GB), i always liked Box, their web interface is really good, but the best is that my account has like 5 years and all my files are still there, i should like delete some, but the combination of 50GB and never deleting a file ever, makes it perfect for small backups and old webfiles, their sync app is pretty bad, so i dont use it (tried it twice).

Mega (Free 50GB), what? MEGA!!! yep, as it seems the fact that your files are encripted and they dont delete files and they have backups and they dont have file size limits, makes mega awesome for website backups, sometimes if its a database heavy site its pretty small, but if its a media heavy website, its gonna get huge, so mega is awesome for that and yes i do encript all files myself, so no security issues there! and super fast upload and download!

I do have a owncloud instance but i only use that to sync my music, maybe if i encript it and make automatic backups, ill use it more ^_^’

Cloud Providers i Tried and Quit!

Cubby, pretty good cloud hosting, with local sync and web sync, but with their change to a paid service  they basically cripled every free user to a less than useful service, before it had some interesting features now its way less usefull, that and a touchy sync (sometimes it syncs, sometimes it doesnt and says everything is synced…)

Rapidshare, this one is going down the drain, i dont know what they are thinking, i was still barely using them, but the last files i had there died a couple of weeks ago for no reason, no point using them for anything.

Mediafire, good for sharing, horrible for backups, your files dont stay if they are too popular or not popular enough, im not sure why they keep saying they are a dropbox clone, they are a basic filehost.

Skydrive, searching your files for images or whatever is beyond me, i dont care if its automatic, any host that searches your files is not a host that i will ever use.

Google Drive, im slowly moving away from Google services, but i did try it and it worked ok, i didn’t liked they changed their pricing at the time, but i dont care cause i dont want to use, that and their terms of service that give them a lifetime license to your stuff, again shit beyond me.

So how about Copy?

Well I’ve only tried for a few days, but its very similar to dropbox (thats a good thing), lightweight and i like their android app, worked great for now, quick syncing, i did wished they did something different, instead of a pure clone, still if i get more than what i have in dropbox you never know hehehe.

So yeah i put in this post my copy and my dropbox referral use it if you are interested in signing up youll get extra space, ohh and here is my Copy referral  (If you sign up you will get an extra 5GB!)

Cloud Storage – Skydrive’s Storage Claims

Reviews

Guess I’m back to talking about cloud services, still this time
I’m on Skydrive’s tail, when this new Skydrive was announced on the MSDN blog, there was something that i found odd, the reason Microsoft decided to give 7GB of free space to new users, the reasoning being that 99,94% of all Skydrive users only used less than 7GB! Ill even give you their graph!

Neet, but something seems off, and some things do come to mind…

  1. Skydrive was a crippled service, less we not forget but the fact that Skydrive wasn’t that popular, was that you had 25GB but you could only upload files through a web form, you had like 100Mb limit for file size, stuff like that, with this… of course the vast majority didn’t have the time or patience to upload a lot of files to Skydrive, its completely different from the service that Skydrive is offering now!
  2. 25GB was the calling card, the reason you had so many users in the first place was the 25GB, even though it was hard to use the space, people like big numbers.
  3. There will be some storage envy, even with pretty spanky awesome lower storage price tiers and older users being able to have their 25GB, people that before ignored Skydrive because it was a crippled service, will now just compare it with Dropbox, Google Drive and such, hell with Dropbox you can get way more than 7GB with referrals, and Dropbox is still the superior service!
  4. 7GB is a weird number, it IS! 8GB or 10GB would be better, or better yet, keep the freaking 25GB, if most people just use 7GB there would be no harm at all! RIGHT!!!
As a sidenote I’ve tried this new Skydrive and i must say it works pretty well on windows 7 (on mac it sucks bad, since its only available to lion), comparing with Dropbox that uses like 60/80 Mb of Ram and about 2/3% CPU, Skydrive uses about 10/20 Mb of Ram and barely touches CPU, it also runs pretty smoothly, so good job there Microsoft, shame about the storage shenanigans.

Google Drive and Cloud Storage

Reviews

So Google just launched Google Drive and although this has been quite a week on the cloud, and the response from the web to “Google’s Dropbox Clone” has been mostly “meh”, i do understand the sentiment, it is basically a Dropbox Clone, sure it has some new features but those are mostly baked into Google Docs already, so what is my view on this Goggle Docs+ i mean Google Drive…

Oh Shit it does Sync!

That’s awesome if it was released in 2006, its 2012 now and there are plenty of sync everywhere including cloud services, some more simple, some more fancy, but that’s pretty much the service, Google launching it now, feels and seems like an afterthought, because Microsoft and Apple went into it, they better do it as well, also it pretty much does only that, its a sync engine for Google Docs and that service although cool is not that awesome and it doesn’t replace at all using a local office software.

Oh Snap Google Owns Me!

So most of us are loyal and use a lot of Google Services, i know i do, and the day some algorithm in Google decides to suspend my account for some random reason (ie a bad Google Adwords ad, or putting my nickname on Google+ or whatnot), and of course i can trust the non-existent Google support to help me out, so yeah, using Google nowadays should be done with a backup/alternative always in mind.

Worst! Google unfortunately resides in the USA the home of such nice things as the Patriot Act and the reason why a lot of companies don’t host any personal/private information in the USA, cause its too easy to just go into your files, you need warrants and judges to go to your home to check your computers, but going to your cloud files… hummm not so much, and with the latest CISPA, it will just get worst, if banks/governments dont trust putting anything inside US borders, why should we trust Google with our stuff?  (ie i know most other cloud hosting are on US, im just stating the fact that Google is also).

Oh Jeez i have to Pay!

So Google launches Drive and decides to updates its storage price, and the web gives a sigh…

If Google Drive was launched with the previous storage prices it would have been an awesome cloud hosting mini revolution, i would see people using and integrating Google Drive in lots of different ways just to find uses to that cheap pricing on storage, but no! the new prices are 4X or more expensive than it used to be, and now its price is just on par with the cheapest of the pack, so why choose Google Drive? Not on storage price!

Its a Google App Engine all over again, they start with a really cheap price and then when people start using it they change the rules of the game, so if anyone is already deep down on Google Services and needs more storage, they will have to pay 4 times or more just to have THE SAME STORAGE THAT THEY USED TO HAVE! its ridiculous and in my opinion its another huge fail from Google.

But wait it gets worst, now with the new storage prices, Google Services have all different storage limits, like Gmail has 10GB, but Drive has only 5GB and Picasa has 1GB what? but Google+ Photos is unlimited, its ridiculous and besides making it more complicated it also kills the gmail “you never have to delete an e-mail ever again” popular slogan, cause now gmail storage stopped growing… thats just sad T_T so sad…

Oh Wow it kinda Sucks!

Ok so Google Drive is syncing to Google Docs, but…no not really, since your documents formatted with Google Docs wont sync, yeah thats right, they will only live only on the Google cloud, so when Google kills your account those files will be lost forever, nice file sync Google, its mostly one way… plus at least in my opinion, not supporting linux is just another silly mistake.

Also Google’s new “all services have the same terms of service” makes Google retaining/granting ownership or license of any material you upload, unlike competing syncing services, if you put something on Google, even if you delete it later on, Google still owns some rights to it, i know! its fucking embarrassing and ridiculous.

Oh chucks i quit!

So whats my take on this Drive… humm ill skip this one, it kinda just makes me dislike Google even more, the old Google ignored users, but this new Google just doesn’t respect its users, Google’s moto “dont be evil” is pretty close to becoming moot.

Cloudflare Review – Should You Use It?

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Since i run lots of sites, things like performance, security, caching, stats are part of the daily routine of running them and of course of extreme importance, whats the point of having a kick ass site if its slow or insecure, so a couple of months ago i heard of cloudflare, basically its a proxy/caching system, but by using this caching system they provide caching for your dns, for site files, as well as intrusion detection, stats and a series of other niceties, this happens mostly because every time anyone wants to visit a site that is using cloudflare it will pass through cloudflare servers before reaching the site.

At first it sounds like an awesome product, first of all the basic package is already extensive and free, but even the paid version seems to have even nicer features and at a very affordable price (it would be nicer if it was $5 each site, and not $20 the first and $5 the remaining), especially comparing to somewhat equivalent CDN and Security systems available online, also impressive is the control panel, very simple but with lots of features (comparing with something like google analytics, its way better at presenting a one page overview), so i decided to test cloudflare and see if it was a good fit for the S2R network.

The testing was done with 3 sites, that have different functions, frameworks, servers, performance and traffic, this way i could see how effective cloudflare is, i do this by doing a initial setup and testing and then having a couple of site monitoring services checking up on the site as well as me randomly visiting them and testing again.

So the simple site was a domain hosted, blogspot powered site, basic template and its mostly a placeholder site while it isnt developed, so low traffic (about 30 uniques a day), low content, quick site.

Following cloudflare instructions and setup, change the dns and waited for it to change, it took about 5minutes for dns to refresh and the site showed first a nginx error (nginx is a webserver software), then after 5minutes a cloudflare logo saying that the cache was being made and after a total of about 15minutes the site was running on cloudflare, first of all this initial caching sucked, first errors, then cloudflare logos, the caching should be done in the background, start in offline mode and then turn itself on when it can cache so users should always see the site, although not too long, this was far from a transparent change, the site remained on cloudflare for around 3 weeks,

after about 2 weeks i got a site down warning, when i visited the site i got a topbar from cloudflare saying that the site was in offline mode (one of cloudflare features), after about 2 minutes of refreshing the site went back to normal, i don’t think it was down at all, still what made me not so happy was putting cloudflare logo and links on that topbar.

Site 2 – The Heavy Duty but Simple Site

So the HDBSS is a domain hosted on a shared server that runs a simple image board software, it caches all the pages in html, so basically its html and pictures, still the site is popular and has higher traffic (about 3000 uniques a day), large but simple content, and because of all the images it is slower to load (altough we do use caching for a lot of things, but i turned them off during this trial).

Again the cloudflare setup, this time around i didnt see any cloudflare logos or problems and the site runned fine from what i could tell, however somethings didn’t work, connecting to the backend (running php) was no problem, but the forms wouldnt work, my only doubt was that probably the captchas or ips were not matching (because of the proxy nature of cloudflare) and therefore the form wouldnt work, the strange thing is that other people could post, so on one part i was having some complains and could see that it wasnt working but posts still kept coming, i did try some workarounds like disabling the form captchas, disabling other settings, but that didnt work so the trial on site 2 was cut short to one day and a half, so after the dns change was complete, the site returned to normal, so the likely culprit was indeed cloudflare, so FAIL!

Well not that complex, but its a domain hosted on a server that runs 2 copies of wordpress (long story), its somewhat popular (about 1000 uniques a day), its a ecommerce site, with large dynamic content, in this case i left wordpress caching (w3 caching) and installed the wordpress plugin from cloudflare.

Setup run smooth, but this time around when dns kicked in i only saw the ngix error, i went to cloudflare help and there said it might be my firewall, so i checked, no, but i put the exceptions anyways and contacted the server host for them to check (later i received that they didnt blocked anything as well as my firewall and that the ips from cloudflare connected correctly), i waited for 30 minutes and then reverted the changes, so again a FAIL!

Conclusion
Humm this didnt went at all like i expected, i didn’t do all of these at the same time, this was done randomly during about a 2 month period, so if there were problems on cloudflare side, then they were recurring, however there are 2 things that concern me regarding cloudflare,

First all the links and logos from them, anytime something is wrong they show their logo, i dont think that is userfriendly it should show the logo of the site in question or just a plain text warning from the site in question, showing cloudflare is confusing to any visitor, ohhh whats happening i thought i was going to vacationparadise.com, where is the site? what is this cloudflare??? is cloudflare there to catter to webmasters or to the general public? cause if i buy CDN from Akmai or Amazon they wont show their logo’s in my site, now would they.

Second it seems too forceful, its make it or break it, if it runs at first it probably will run fine, if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t at all, also their system is purely proxying, so you have to install plugins to make it work fine and for example report links, its too easy to break your site, that risk just for some caching and some security is not a good tradeoff, better to optimize and use caching.

So my opinion of cloudflare is that its actually a pretty impressive product, especially their site, the features and customization even on a free product, but their caching seems limited, i didn’t see any real performance boosts from my tests (even though their panel says its like twice as fast, real life tests from multiple sources didn’t show me that, its more like a few ms and i think mostly cause i don’t use gzip and cloudflare uses it) as well as all the links and logos to cloudflare are ridiculous in my view, from the offline mode and from the initial cache, and probably for the “question pages” as well, even tough i didn’t get any, but i did have one my visitors complaint that the site was blocking him from visiting because he had javascript turned off (probably noscript or something), so that’s a bit worrisome as well, i would say the service has good promise but for now it shouldn’t be used by anyone that runs more than a hobbist site.

Update: I’ve done another updated review of cloudflare! check it out!