Know How
Easy when you
74 Next issue: Robert tries to compare his broadband speed with his neighbours’
Need help with sending your files and emails
with added security?
Let us know: [email protected]ProtonDrive
lets you secure
sensitive files
you share with
a password
and expiration
datebut also because only I knew the password- to see if the link really was secure.
As soon as I clicked the link,
ProtonDrive opened and asked me to
‘Enter password to download’. Being in
possession of this knowledge, I did so,
clicked Submit and a download box
appeared, which included details of when
the link would expire. Clicking the
Download button saved the file, so
everything had worked as
promised. To be on the
safe side, I tried clicking
the link again and
entering the wrong
password, and was this
time told it was incorrect
and asked to try again.
There doesn’t seem to be
a limit on how many
guesses you can make,
which doesn’t sound very
secure, but at least the
expiration date stops your
link being shared around
the web forever.
After waiting so long to try it, I wasn’t
overly impressed with ProtonDrive,
especially with its meagre amount of free
storage, but I guess most of its encryption
happens behind the scenes. It seems the
cheapest way to keep your files secure is
to not bother sharing them at all.
Store and share files securely
Armed with free beta access to the new ProtonDrive
service, Robert Irvine tries to...
I
n this column in Issue 629 (page 74), I
expressed my delight at gaining beta
access to DuckDuckGo’s new App
Tracking Protection feature, which – I’m
sure you’ll be interested to learn – has
now blocked 2,327 tracking attempts on
my phone. This issue, I’m equally
delighted to have been invited by
encrypted webmail service ProtonMail
(https://protonmail.com) to try its new
online storage service, ProtonDrive. The
invitation wasn’t out of the blue – I’ve
been using ProtonMail for several years
and attempted to use ProtonDrive when
it launched last year, only to be told it was
limited to paid accounts. But now that
restriction has been lifted, and free
Proton users (presumably not just miserly
me) can discover what the new encrypted
storage service has to offer.
I clicked the ‘Try Proton Drive’ link in
the invitation email – the company still
hasn’t decided whether the name is one
word or two – which took me to https://
drive.protonmail.com. Here I clicked the
Enable Beta Access button, selected
Enable Beta Access and clicked Apply,
after which I was welcomed to “meet
your new secure file storage” and start
using ProtonDrive.
I was instantly impressed by the simple
interface, which is so clean and
minimalist it makes Google Drive look
like Pig-Pen from the Peanuts comics.
Admittedly, I hadn’t uploaded any files
yet, but it’s nice not to be overwhelmed
with options when trying something
new. More disappointing was that 46MB
of my available storage had already beenused by emails in my ProtonMail account,
and that ProtonDrive only offers 500MB
for free – a fraction of Google Drive’s
15GB. Perhaps its security features would
entice me to upgrade to a Plus plan,
which costs €4 (£3.39) a month for 5GB
of storage?
I was particularly intrigued by the
ability to share ProtonDrive files securely
by protecting them with a password. To
test this, I uploaded some
documents to my new
account, selected an item
and clicked the ‘Get link’
button on the toolbar.
ProtonDrive opened its
‘Share via link’ window,
which initially looked no
different to the same
feature in Google Drive,
but clicking the arrow
next to ‘Additional
settings’ revealed the
all-important security
options. I switched on
the first, ‘Protect with
password’ (see screenshot above), and
specified a password that anyone trying
to access the file would need to enter. I
then enabled the second option, ‘Set
expiration date’, and chose a date on
which the link will stop working. I
clicked Save, followed by the ‘Copy link’
button and pasted the secure link into an
email. I then sent the message to myself- partly to avoid bothering anyone else
ProtonDrive is
so clean it makes
Google Drive
look like Pig-Pen
from Peanuts
After someone enters the password, they can
download the file from ProtonDrive27 April – 10 May 2022 • Issue 630