67
votes
Unfuck Google Drive (It's Gemini garbage, of course)
Turns out Google has been ruining Drive's speed by ramming Gemini down our throats (again). To get stuff loading quickly again, follow these steps:
From the Google Drive page, go to settings (top right, gear icon). Drop into "Manage Apps."
Find Gemini and uncheck "Use as Default." Of course it's automatically turned on despite my organization and my personal accounts having already opted out of Gemini. Once it's off things run much, much faster.
Presumably they're doing some dumb shit and having Gemini scan the contents of your entire drive, constantly.
I moved off Google Drive for OneDrive some years ago, well before Gemini (or even Bard) existed, so I can't comment on the slow down you've experienced, but:
I've been told first hand from a friend who's an employee at Google that they've been scanning Drive contents since it was launched. Namely using constant algorithm searches for:
Not to excuse Gemini, it sounds like there's an additional layer of scanning that perhaps Gemini is doing. But wanted to dispel the idea that they might not have been invasively scanning before Gemini.
I'm pretty sure it's the same with OneDrive. I don't have a link now, but I remember people claiming that some mp3 files disappeared without warning, even though I don’t think there is a way to check whether an mp3 file came from a shop, a Linux ISO, or your own CD.
I also remeber a story about a guy losing access because his own pictures of his own children were classified as "CP"; I think that was on GDrive.
You are right, it was Google removing a guy's access to his entire Google account.
Apple flipflopped for years over whether it would be scanning photos/iCloud data but it seems for the time being, they went with "end to end encryption means it's not our problem" as a solution which is both great and horrifying.
I would imagine that all cloud hosting services scan your files. I remember Kim Dotcom getting arrested for not moderating what people stored on Megaupload. It’s honestly appalling that the US could have him arrested for copyright violations for not removing copyrighted content from people’s drives when I’ve seen multiple public Google Drive links with pirated content. I have yet to hear about any Google executives behind bars for facilitating copyright violations.
While I don’t know any of the details, I suspect it’s a lot less “is it stored” and a lot more “do you promptly respond to DMCA Takedown notices when they’re sent to you” but I could be wrong and it is as brazen as you suggest
As an aside, what are people looking at as a replacement? I never adopted google drive heavily, and am hosting my own stuff these days and looking into next cloud, but I hate that there's no easy "here's a link with a thing" option I can just use to send people stuff who aren't signed up with whatever.
Firefox briefly had an awesome solution for this, but I've never found a good replacement for those one off files that I send to family or friends.
Nextcloud allows for public sharing of anything you have stored in there. Just double checked it is slightly hidden though.
I personally rarely use it, but have been a happy user of nextcloud as my document syncing thing for years now.
Ahh good to know. I've only done personal testing so far and figured it was another "Need to be a member" thing. I'll have to mess with that.
It can be if you want, or not. That setting is configurable in the admin panel :)
Filen was my choice for this. Has all the same sharing functions from Google Drive and it also lets you automatically back up stuff easily.
I also heard good things about Koofr.
I switched from Google Drive to pCloud years ago. It's a one time payment that has regular sales and has clients for all the major operating systems. I used to worry that pCloud couldn't sustain this business model, but their phone app and backup client are amazing and regularly getting better.
Give it a look: https://www.pcloud.com/
If you're not opposed to self-hosting, copyparty is super powerful and easy to set up
Not an out-of-the-box solution, but I use Syncthing to sync folders between my devices. They're also synced on my VPS, and I'm using FileBrowser on top to navigate the files from my browser.
Seafille is an alternative to Nextcloud for file syncing and sharing. Like Nextcloud, you get a desktop version to sync folders, and you can generate links for individual items. There are also web interfaces and mobile apps. The UI is more basic compared to Nextcloud, but can also be faster, especially on web.
If you only want a solution for sharing file, not syncing between your own devices, I like Zipline. The web IU is simple but good, and you can set up various ways to upload from desktop, e.g. from the CLI or using ShareX on Windows.
I use Tresorit, it is paid but you can share files, folders and I use it to sync some important folders
Every single other email provider has some sort of way to share files Beyond an attachment in an email. The only real solution to the problems with Gmail is to become a customer of another company and stop being the product of google.
That's what i've always done, but i'm not aware of a quick way to share a file with someone who's not apart of proton. Sharing a drive link asks them to login.
I pay for Dropbox for 10 years now and never looked back. I need that shit professionally, deal with very large, lots of small and often oddly named (foreign names and whatnot) files. I also need to send quick, direct links that immediately download. I also like the automatic versioning that lets you retrieve old versions of files for a duration, saved my ass many times. No service I checked does it as well as Dropbox, still, IMO. They try to push some bullshit additional feature here and there but you can mostly ignore it. Also there is a factor of consistency and reliability. I switched to different services in the past (and listen to friends who try different ones, especially “free” offers) and a lot of them changed or disappeared over a few years. I don’t see Dropbox going anywhere unless they do something monumentally stupid.
Cloud backup services are essential, nowadays. Pay for them. For example, on iOS get the iCloud level that can hold all your photos. Absolutely worth it.
Dropbox is still decent albeit a bit more pricey than OneDrive and Google Drive. I use Proton drive as it comes with the email/VPN subscription and I like it.
I second the proton drive recommend. They are doing their best to mimic the beneficial functionality of Googles products, while having a privacy focus. I often use their file sharing to send links to specific groups/people I want to share things with. That and it coming with the email/VPN makes it very easy to switch/use if you are willing to pay for their product.
I use Sync.com, it charges 98 USD / year for two terabytes of storage, with versioning and file recovery, and that's more than enough for me. It's encrypted but also in Canada, a Five Eyes country, so theoretically they could get a search warrant for your files.
Step one, don't use google drive
Step two, there is no step two
Thank You!