Storing and Protecting your data: pCloud is the answer
I've been using Dropbox for as long as I can remember. I bought a 2TB plan that provided ample room to store ALL of my travel (and other) photos and videos. And it also has room to spare for my documents. For $200/year, I had Dropbox's Family Plan, so that I could share some of that space with my daughter in college.
I scan everything: medical papers, tax and legal documents, auto service records, and more. By having a fast scanner (like this one: https://amzn.to/3B0o2SL), I'm able to quickly scan things and get rid of the paper.
Over the years, I've loved having a place to store all of my documents - and quickly be able to look at them from anywhere with my phone. But there was a concern for how secure they were, not to mention the download speeds and lack of some important features.
I began scouring every site I could find looking for the best alternative to Dropbox and found a clear-cut winner: pCloud.
pCloud is, in my opinion, leaps and bounds above Dropbox for several reasons:
- Cost: pCloud's 2TB Premium service is cheaper. And pCloud offers a 2TB Lifetime Plan. By purchasing this plan, you'll spend as much as Dropbox Plus for about three years, then it'll be "free" for the rest of your life.
- Sharing: pCloud's sharing features are easy to use, and shared files can be put on a "web page" where you can show a photo banner and some text. Classy, and ANYONE can set it up through their prompts.
- Encryption: unlike Dropbox, pCloud has a Crypto Option that has uses something called "zero-knowledge" encryption. This means that files are automatically encrypted on my computer BEFORE they are sent to the pCloud servers. No one between me and the servers can ever read my encrypted files - and even the people working for pCloud can't read them. Dropbox maintains their key so, technically, their employees have access to my encrypted files. And it's simple: all I have to do is enter a separate password to access my encrypted file folders.
- Interface: Dropbox allows you to synchronize files. This means that you can select which folders you want duplicated on your computer and they'll keep them in sync. When you call up a Dropbox file stored on your local computer and make changes, it automatically copies (syncs) the files to the copy stored on their server. pCloud can also synchronize files. BUT....they have a program that downloads to your computer that creates a virtual drive where you can access ALL two terabytes of your stored files. What's a virtual drive? It's where they add an entire "drive" to your computer that seemingly contains all of your pCloud files. You already may have drive C: and maybe drive D:, but they add a drive P:. The cool thing is that none of the drive P files are actually on your computer! They're all on their servers (in the "cloud"). You can drag and drop them, view them, and anything else that you can do with any other files on your computer - as long as you have an Internet connection.
- Public folder. The pCloud public folder isn't just a place to drop files that you can share with the public. You can also put images and files there and link to them from other places - like web pages or this blog. AND you can even put in an HTML file that has its own URL! This means that you can host a basic web page on the Internet right from the public folder.
- Automatic backups. pCloud has an easy system to automatically backup files on your PC, MAC or phone. Set up is amazingly simple.
- Photo viewing. On Dropbox, it was slow to look at a folder of photos. Not only that, the photos were small and difficult to see. With pCloud, looking at photos is like looking at your photo gallery. They are quick to display and the images are much larger.
- Music streaming. pCloud lets you create music playlists and stream them right from your device.
