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[] APP SHOWDOWN: THE BEST CLOUD STORAGE APPORGANISING CLOUDS
TIPS FOR STORM-CHASERS WHO WANT TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THEIR CLOUD COMPUTING.
GOOGLE DRIVE APPS
As testament to how good Google Drive is as
a cloud storage application, it allows you to
download a raft of third-party apps that let you
interact with files and media directly through the
storage space. When it comes to your smartphone,
you’re likely to have plenty of apps to manage your
files already, but it is massively helpful at the PC
end to not have to leave the page. Applications
like Online Video Converter, browser-based photo
editors, a music player plugin and even the
platform’s Cloud ePub Reader make Google Drive
almost as good at managing general files as it is
with document management.
SCAN DIRECTLY TO THE CLOUD
If you do a lot of document scanning and need
the files somewhere other than your smartphone,
then it’s worth checking out Google Drive’s
scanning feature, directly in the upload options.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t include OCR so you
won’t be able to convert scans directly to written
documents, but it is a speedy way to have
your scans available everywhere.
SAVE TO GOOGLE DRIVE
In addition to storing your music, T V, movies,
documents, pictures and files, you can also use
your Google Cloud storage as a web clipper.
If you like to save things for later but would rather
not be bound to applications like Evernote, then
why not install the Chrome browser extension
‘Save to Google Drive’?ACCESS DRIVE FILES OFFLINE
If you happen to mostly access your cloud files
from one device, you can toggle the offline editing
setting to allow it to save files locally to your
device. This handy feature will make it possible
to edit your documents if you happen to dip out
of Wi-Fi range or your internet connection drops
out altogether.ALSO CONSIDER...
THESE RUNNERS-UP APPS
FOR WORKING AMONGST THE CLOUDS.BOX
Free 10 GB, $7 per month ( 100 GB)
http://www.box.comThis cloud storage app will hit you up with a nice
fluff y 10 GB of cloud storage pro-bono, which is
pretty generous against Dropbox’s crummy 2GB.
If you decide you need more, 100 GB costs $7 per
month and comes with 3–10 secure sharable
user accounts, Microsoft 365 and Google Docs
integration, and unlimited external share links.
With upload speeds of 2 minutes 35 seconds
for a 52.5MB file and a generous feature set,
Box offers notably more than Dropbox.ONEDRIVE
Free 5GB, $2 per month 50GB,
$89 per year 1TB (inc. Office 365)
onedrive.live.comOneDrive was almost as appealing as
GoogleDrive in the middle of 2016 , but then
Amazon backed away from infinite cloud
subscriptions and cut its free tier space from
15GB to just 5GB. New users can redeem some
or all of this 10 GB difference by referring
friends, at 500 MB a pop, but we recorded the
upload speeds to be a little slower than most at
5 minutes and 27 seconds for a 52.5MB file.AMAZON CLOUD DRIVE
$100 per year (unlimited)
http://www.amazon.com.auAmazon’s cloud storage isn’t quite as
interconnected as Dropbox or Google Drive,
with only three ways of uploading files through
the smartphone app. But 5GB of free space
goes some way to remedying that simplicity
and if you’re a new user, Amazon Cloud Drive
offers unlimited storage for three months,
free of charge. It might be simple, but Amazon
Cloud Drive has the fastest upload speeds
we’ve tested, managing to upload a 52 .5MB file
in 1 minute and 48 seconds.