All you need to know about Google Drive

You’ve probably heard about Google Drive by now and chances are you’ve already got it. On April 25, Google launched its own cloud-based storage service called Drive in order to compete with existing players like Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, among others. The idea behind Drive is to consolidate Google Documents, along with the ability to store other file types as well like music, videos and just about any other file. The first change comes in the form of a swanky new logo and a desktop application. If you have a Gmail account, you’re eligible for Google Drive.
Key Features
Just like Dropbox, Google Drive comes with a desktop application for Windows and Mac. What this does is to create a new folder called ‘Drive’ which shows you all the files you have up in the cloud. You can access all your documents from this folder or simply drag and drop new files like music, video, etc into the folder so that it will be in sync with the cloud allowing you to access it from any PC. Google has now added support up to 30 types of files, directly in your web browser. For instance, you can open and view Photoshop files in your browser, even if you don’t have Photoshop installed on your PC. This gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to viewing and sharing files and since, almost everyone has a Google account, it’s even easier.
Another new feature is OCR text scanning. What this means is if there’s any text in an image you upload, Google will scan the image for text and make it searchable making it easier to find images even if you haven’t tagged them correctly.
Perhaps, the biggest strength of Google Drive is its tight-knit integration with other Google services. Very soon, you’ll be able to save attachments from Gmail directly to Google Drive or attach documents and files directly from Drive and e-mail them.
The best part is you’ll be able to do all this while on the move through the Android app. iOS users will have to wait a bit longer for an app. With Drive, you get a separate 5GB of storage space which is separate from the space you get for e-mail. Speaking of which, Google has now increased Gmail storage space from 7.5GB to 10GB. In case you need additional space in your Drive account, then that can be bought for a reasonable sum of $2.49/month for 25GB, $4.99/month for 100GB and $9.99/month for 200GB.
Google’s new privacy policy for Drive came under scrutiny when a clause read that Google has the rights to use your uploaded data in order to ‘promote, operate and improve’ their services.
Questions were raised as to who owns the data once it’s uploaded to the cloud, but Google has reassured us that it doesn’t claim right to anyone’s personal data and that it won’t be used for anything else other than running its services.
A quick comparison ofhow it stacks up with the competition follows.
Google Drive
Free Space: 5GB
Desktop clients: Windows, Mac
Mobile app: Android
Shared folder: Yes
Media Streaming: No
Paid space:
$2.99 - 25GB, $4.99 - 100GB
Dropbox
Free Space: 2GB
Desktop clients:
Windows, Mac, Linux
Mobile app: Android, iOS, BlackBerry
Shared folder: Yes
Media Streaming: Yes
Paid space:
$9.99 - 50GB, $19.99 - 100GB
SkyDrive
Free Space: 7GB
Desktop clients: Windows, Mac
Mobile app: iOS, Windows Phone
Shared folder: Yes
Media Streaming: Yes
Paid space: $0.83 - 20GB,
$2.08 - 50GB
Box.net
Free Space: 5GB
Desktop clients: Windows, Mac
Mobile app: Android, iOS, BlackBerry
Shared folder: Yes
Media Streaming: No
Paid space:
$9.99 - 25GB, $19.99 - 50GB