Google Drive Review 2024 – Buyer’s Guide

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A company that doesn’t need any introduction in the digital era is Google. Google Drive provides amazing versatility when we speak of options for cloud storage. It can integrate with several apps and works smoothly with applications linked with G Suite. This includes your Slides, Google Docs, and Sheets. 

All of the collaboration features of Drive can help in replacing the best cloud services we know of. Google Drive provides excellent free plans that come with storage space of 15 GB and almost all of us use it. Additionally, unlike other service provides all of their features are free for use as well and isn’t this enough to make it the best cloud storage? Well, let’s take a closer look at our Google Drive review right here!

Features Of Google Drive

When you make your Google Account, you automatically get the Google Drive account as well. This will be the place where all emails get saved on Gmail, photo and video backup on Google photos and there can be a possibility where you aren’t aware that you already have a Google Drive account.

Google Drive functions most all big OS. There is a different version for Mac and Windows. The mobile variant works well on iOS and Android. 

There are several attractive features. As this comes from Google, it will be working smoothly with the huge Google ecosystem that includes Google Home, Gmail, and the most critical Google Workspace suite. You can get collaborated with co-workers for all cloud-based documents.

Pricing Of Google Drive

As we mentioned that all users have a free storage space of 15 GB and one can use all features as well. You can further as per the need expand the current drive space of up to 30 TB and all of them will be paid subscriptions.

• 15 GB: Free plan
• 100 GB:  $ 1.99 per month
• 200 GB:  $ 2.99 per month
• 2 TB: $ 9.99 per month
• 10 TB: $ 49.99 per month
• 20 TB: $ 99.99 per month
• 30 TB: $ 149.99 per month

Keep in mind that these are monthly plans and you can go for yearly subscriptions for some discounts.

Ease of Use

Google Drive comes with a user-friendly storage service. As it’s a Google Product, ease in usage is an expected feature. The interface is decently designed. The main way of accessing Google Drive is through your browser. The browser interface is clean and elegant while being useful and informative.

Everything here is responsive and fast, and all actions get backed up through smooth animation. This makes every click seem important. Goggle Drive is mainly present on the browser, but you have the option of downloading for Windows PC and Mac.

Additionally, there is a mobile application available for iOS and Android users both.

File Sharing and Sync

Google Drive provides you with the best capabilities when we speak of file sharing. But there are some features where it lacks when we speak of its competitors. Through Google Drive, file sharing stays to be a simple task.

There are two main ways of folder and file sharing on Google Drive. The easiest and first way is through the option of “get shareable link”. This is going to create a link and can be used for sharing the file on social media or through email to a specific person.

The desktop app of Google Drive automatically syncs all of the cloud files over your drive folder. Additionally, you can also select folders to be synced on Drive and there isn’t a need for manual upload. You can also backup your Android phone data here. All of the contact, image, and setting data get saved automatically.

Speed Of Google Drive

Google presently has servers across the world. This also means that you should be having server access near you. The good news here is that the speed will depend on your distance from the servers.

The upload speeds are fine, but when we speak of download speeds, they can be called mediocre and can improve. In our speed test of 1 GB file, the download speed was 32 Mbps, and for upload 6Mbps. It took 28 minutes for upload and download took slightly more than 6 minutes.

For such a big company that has a huge server network, this performance is average and certainly needs improvements.

Security

Google stays amongst the biggest player in the tech industry. This also means that technically speaking their security factor should also be the best. All of your files saved over Google Drive stay encrypted. But remember that Google also has the encryption keys as their default choice. So although the encryption feature is strong all of your files and data can get decrypted whenever needed.

There is a use of two-factor authentication for making sure your logins stay protected. When you enable this setting, there will be a need for confirming the logins by responding to your mobile notification. This will make sure that only you have the security of logging in to your account, even in case someone else has your password and username details.

Privacy

When we speak of Privacy, Google Drive doesn’t hold an amazing reputation. They have even violated their privacy policy and service terms in past. One of the instances was that 2019 scandal where an employee that was reviewing the user input through Google assistant had leaked over 1000 conversations to another news outlet in Belgium.

So remember that anything that you will upload on Google Drive does get scanned. This is usually for checking for viruses, harmful content, or violations of copyright. Although they do claim that they aren’t using any of the information of such scans for advertising usage, we are aware by the above example, that this cannot be always trusted.

Even if we think that Google isn’t using all of the information for providing you with targeted ads, just the thought that Google employees are allowed to see the private files is enough to cause us to be concerned.

Customer Service

This is an area where Google Drive excels from its competitors. You get 24/7 customer support through phone, email, and chat. Additionally, the help center also answers all of the questions on different topics. These are organized neatly and include helpful images, videos, and links for related topics. On the user forum, you can also get assistance from community and expert Google employees.

Pros and Cons

Let’s take a look at the Pros and Cons of Google Drive:

Pros

• Free 15 GB of data and features for all
• Amazing for work collaborations
• Several third-party apps
• Integration of Google Workspace
• Excellence customer support
• Simple and swift to use

Cons

• There can be privacy concerns
• There isn’t any block-level syncing

Final Verdict Of Google Drive

As you can see from the review, Google Drive is certainly one of the most capable platforms for cloud storage. The collaboration capacity is impressive. Very few competitors can come close with its Google Workspace integration and there are endless options when we speak of file sharing.

However, although your data stays encrypted on Google Drive, their privacy policy is poor. Even after this most people across the world have been depending on Google services. All of the critical data is made available for Google employees that scan your information and can sell that data to advertisers easily.

So, in case, your main priority is strict data privacy, then Google Drive might not be the best for you. Apart from that, this is one of the most useful cloud service providers with excellent features.

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