@dgc1980 said:
lifetime deals are actve again, I paid 35 euro for 200GB last year, dont think I will upgrade it again.
For me, the subscription 2TB plan has worked well so far, and I decided to risk with lifetime.
We will know if that was foolish in a year or two.
Edit - the lifetime prices this Black Friday:
I bought the 100 GB lifetime plan almost 4 years ago and although I've barely used the service, they're still in business so I consider it a win. Hopefully they stay in business for both of our sakes
@root said:
From what I can gather, they offered lifetime in the past, during previous Black Friday. However, as per their announcement, this Black Friday will "most likely" be the final round with Pro Lifetime plans. This is interesting because there seems to be a lot of fear of missing out used (FOMO), and all of it makes sense from their perspective because "they will be sold at their regular price". This means there will be no discount like in previous Black Friday offers.
All of this triggers a lot of alarm bells in my mind, because Filen does not seem to be that great in popularity, and it comes with a lot of promises. On top of that, they make this lifetime as if it's something big, even though there will be no discounts (just another full price). One can simply buy Koofr or pCloud to get a better deal (discounted price) on Black Friday from established providers, and also get more features which are already there (no promises for this and that).
As a reference, I attach the prices from a previous Black Friday event of theirs, which included both the discount at the time along the full price (which should be expected during the following Black Friday). My honest guess is that they're in crisis due to storage price increase worldwide, so they need a lot of funding which forces them to enter Black Friday with: full price, more promises, and more FOMO.
#LowEndDetectives
Similar doubts. Strong FOMO vibes - 100% yes.
However, they are not pushing discounts to make more sales (and more total revenue), so they might be at least trying to keep the service profitable (not just take money and deadpool).
Still, that begs the question: do discount sales make more money in total compared to selling fewer plans at regular price.
Another thing I've noticed is that they have been announcing this since their previous black friday sale - along the lines that they might make another sale for this black Friday, but that would probably be it.
Regarding alternatives:
Upload speed and application's sync option are way ahead of what I've experienced with Pcloud's encrypted option (though yes, Pcloud supports rclone so that is a good fix - but less beginner drag&drop friendly).
Also, Pcloud is selling lifetime deals at a discount every few months - that does not sound sustainable unless there is a catch - unless I'm missing something.
Risky either way.
pCloud works with Cryptomator, which is very beginner drag&drop friendly. Check it out
Been using Filen since ~2022 and they do have their issues, but have been pretty solid overall. One thing to note is that development is slow as their team was basically 2 or 3 people over the last couple of years.
Although they have hired/are hiring a couple of people recently so hopefully that will change things.
@root said:
From what I can gather, they offered lifetime in the past, during previous Black Friday. However, as per their announcement, this Black Friday will "most likely" be the final round with Pro Lifetime plans. This is interesting because there seems to be a lot of fear of missing out used (FOMO), and all of it makes sense from their perspective because "they will be sold at their regular price". This means there will be no discount like in previous Black Friday offers.
All of this triggers a lot of alarm bells in my mind, because Filen does not seem to be that great in popularity, and it comes with a lot of promises. On top of that, they make this lifetime as if it's something big, even though there will be no discounts (just another full price). One can simply buy Koofr or pCloud to get a better deal (discounted price) on Black Friday from established providers, and also get more features which are already there (no promises for this and that).
As a reference, I attach the prices from a previous Black Friday event of theirs, which included both the discount at the time along the full price (which should be expected during the following Black Friday). My honest guess is that they're in crisis due to storage price increase worldwide, so they need a lot of funding which forces them to enter Black Friday with: full price, more promises, and more FOMO.
#LowEndDetectives
Similar doubts. Strong FOMO vibes - 100% yes.
However, they are not pushing discounts to make more sales (and more total revenue), so they might be at least trying to keep the service profitable (not just take money and deadpool).
Still, that begs the question: do discount sales make more money in total compared to selling fewer plans at regular price.
Another thing I've noticed is that they have been announcing this since their previous black friday sale - along the lines that they might make another sale for this black Friday, but that would probably be it.
Regarding alternatives:
Upload speed and application's sync option are way ahead of what I've experienced with Pcloud's encrypted option (though yes, Pcloud supports rclone so that is a good fix - but less beginner drag&drop friendly).
Also, Pcloud is selling lifetime deals at a discount every few months - that does not sound sustainable unless there is a catch - unless I'm missing something.
Risky either way.
pCloud works with Cryptomator, which is very beginner drag&drop friendly. Check it out
How many non-IT people do you know that use Cryptomator (genuine question, not disputing)?
In my experience, getting "non-IT" people to start using a password manager is difficult enough.
Adding a Cryptomator on top sounds like asking for more problems - if there are simpler alternatives.
Don't get me started on "2FA" LOL.
Having said that, even for my own use, Filen.io and Mega.nz is quite convenient - can't say I mind having one step less to do.
@root said:
From what I can gather, they offered lifetime in the past, during previous Black Friday. However, as per their announcement, this Black Friday will "most likely" be the final round with Pro Lifetime plans. This is interesting because there seems to be a lot of fear of missing out used (FOMO), and all of it makes sense from their perspective because "they will be sold at their regular price". This means there will be no discount like in previous Black Friday offers.
All of this triggers a lot of alarm bells in my mind, because Filen does not seem to be that great in popularity, and it comes with a lot of promises. On top of that, they make this lifetime as if it's something big, even though there will be no discounts (just another full price). One can simply buy Koofr or pCloud to get a better deal (discounted price) on Black Friday from established providers, and also get more features which are already there (no promises for this and that).
As a reference, I attach the prices from a previous Black Friday event of theirs, which included both the discount at the time along the full price (which should be expected during the following Black Friday). My honest guess is that they're in crisis due to storage price increase worldwide, so they need a lot of funding which forces them to enter Black Friday with: full price, more promises, and more FOMO.
#LowEndDetectives
Similar doubts. Strong FOMO vibes - 100% yes.
However, they are not pushing discounts to make more sales (and more total revenue), so they might be at least trying to keep the service profitable (not just take money and deadpool).
Still, that begs the question: do discount sales make more money in total compared to selling fewer plans at regular price.
Another thing I've noticed is that they have been announcing this since their previous black friday sale - along the lines that they might make another sale for this black Friday, but that would probably be it.
Regarding alternatives:
Upload speed and application's sync option are way ahead of what I've experienced with Pcloud's encrypted option (though yes, Pcloud supports rclone so that is a good fix - but less beginner drag&drop friendly).
Also, Pcloud is selling lifetime deals at a discount every few months - that does not sound sustainable unless there is a catch - unless I'm missing something.
Risky either way.
pCloud works with Cryptomator, which is very beginner drag&drop friendly. Check it out
How many non-IT people do you know that use Cryptomator (genuine question, not disputing)?
In my experience, getting "non-IT" people to start using a password manager is difficult enough.
Adding a Cryptomator on top sounds like asking for more problems - if there are simpler alternatives.
It is very hard for someone to answer such question, because it is not tracked. You need a software that tracks its users, in order to have some public statistic about customers. However, things are even more difficult when it comes to a software which is open source, because open-source can simply have tracking code removed if this was attempted.
Precisely because it is open source, I shall dare to assume some projections. For example Mozilla Thunderbird for Android has about 2.6K forks and about 12.8K stars on Github. Meanwhile Cryptomator has 1.2K forks but 14K stars. I would therefore dare to assume that the users would be about half of that for Thunderbird (which is a very known open-source email client) - so Cryptomator in my opinion is way more relevant than you might guess (but I don't know your guess either to go deeper on my assumptions).
Don't get me started on "2FA" LOL.
Let's do that, because we're a technical forum who cares about technical diversity... right?
A statistic from CBS, shows that the number of 2FA users has doubled since 2017. About 72% of companies use it in summer of 2025, compared to 57% in 2017. Other statistics searched using DuckDuckGo display quite similar results.
Having said that, even for my own use, Filen.io and Mega.nz is quite convenient - can't say I mind having one step less to do.
I already noticed you keep choosing convenience. I can't and won't comment on what you use or why. Feel free to choose whatever, or thank whomever.
I reserve the right to license all of my content under: CC BY-NC-ND. Whatever happens on this forum should stay on this forum.
@root said:
From what I can gather, they offered lifetime in the past, during previous Black Friday. However, as per their announcement, this Black Friday will "most likely" be the final round with Pro Lifetime plans. This is interesting because there seems to be a lot of fear of missing out used (FOMO), and all of it makes sense from their perspective because "they will be sold at their regular price". This means there will be no discount like in previous Black Friday offers.
All of this triggers a lot of alarm bells in my mind, because Filen does not seem to be that great in popularity, and it comes with a lot of promises. On top of that, they make this lifetime as if it's something big, even though there will be no discounts (just another full price). One can simply buy Koofr or pCloud to get a better deal (discounted price) on Black Friday from established providers, and also get more features which are already there (no promises for this and that).
As a reference, I attach the prices from a previous Black Friday event of theirs, which included both the discount at the time along the full price (which should be expected during the following Black Friday). My honest guess is that they're in crisis due to storage price increase worldwide, so they need a lot of funding which forces them to enter Black Friday with: full price, more promises, and more FOMO.
#LowEndDetectives
Similar doubts. Strong FOMO vibes - 100% yes.
However, they are not pushing discounts to make more sales (and more total revenue), so they might be at least trying to keep the service profitable (not just take money and deadpool).
Still, that begs the question: do discount sales make more money in total compared to selling fewer plans at regular price.
Another thing I've noticed is that they have been announcing this since their previous black friday sale - along the lines that they might make another sale for this black Friday, but that would probably be it.
Regarding alternatives:
Upload speed and application's sync option are way ahead of what I've experienced with Pcloud's encrypted option (though yes, Pcloud supports rclone so that is a good fix - but less beginner drag&drop friendly).
Also, Pcloud is selling lifetime deals at a discount every few months - that does not sound sustainable unless there is a catch - unless I'm missing something.
Risky either way.
pCloud works with Cryptomator, which is very beginner drag&drop friendly. Check it out
How many non-IT people do you know that use Cryptomator (genuine question, not disputing)?
Addmitedly, about a hand ful. But the rest of non-IT people I know doesn't (seem to) care about encrypting their data at all. Those that have approached me and asked how I encrypt my file, have been very happy with Cryptomator.
Of course, smth like pCloud's/Koofr's built-in encrypted vault is probably the easiest way. But then again, I can imagine many people wouldn't even want to enter an extra password. In that case, Internxt (even though I can't especially recommend them) might be the most "secure" out of the box, as they supposedly use a zero-knowledge approach, where there are encrypted shards of your data stored in various locations and only when all those fragmented shards come together, someone will be able to reconstruct the file behind it. This feature comes out of the box. It's probably, why their encryption is painfully slow as a file is encrypted into various shards, uploaded to different locations and then, when you want to open it again, retrieved from all those shards, encrypted and put together. https://help.internxt.com/en/articles/5387164-what-is-zero-knowledge-encryption
Files uploaded to Internxt Drive are fragmented, client-side encrypted, and distributed all over the globe, so that a server never holds a complete file, but instead an encrypted data shard.
In my experience, getting "non-IT" people to start using a password manager is difficult enough.
100% Agree. Why can't I use my birth year as a pin? Why can't I use the same pw everywhere..
Adding a Cryptomator on top sounds like asking for more problems - if there are simpler alternatives.
Like I mentioned above, I've received positive feedback from my non-IT friends that wanted to encrypt their data and asked me for an easy way to do it. And that's one person that is using the Apple Ecosystem solely (and that is not meant to be a prejudice, but from my experience, non-IT Apple users tend to be the most averse to any kind of "modding"/extra technical measures).
Don't get me started on "2FA" LOL.
I won't. Let's not go there
Having said that, even for my own use, Filen.io and Mega.nz is quite convenient - can't say I mind having one step less to do.
Definitely. Koofr even comes with their free pw protected vault (pCloud charges for pcloud vault), but I don't use it as I cba to always enter my pw in browser. On the other side, Cryptomator auto-unlocks vaults on boot so that's easy enough.
@root said:
From what I can gather, they offered lifetime in the past, during previous Black Friday. However, as per their announcement, this Black Friday will "most likely" be the final round with Pro Lifetime plans. This is interesting because there seems to be a lot of fear of missing out used (FOMO), and all of it makes sense from their perspective because "they will be sold at their regular price". This means there will be no discount like in previous Black Friday offers.
All of this triggers a lot of alarm bells in my mind, because Filen does not seem to be that great in popularity, and it comes with a lot of promises. On top of that, they make this lifetime as if it's something big, even though there will be no discounts (just another full price). One can simply buy Koofr or pCloud to get a better deal (discounted price) on Black Friday from established providers, and also get more features which are already there (no promises for this and that).
As a reference, I attach the prices from a previous Black Friday event of theirs, which included both the discount at the time along the full price (which should be expected during the following Black Friday). My honest guess is that they're in crisis due to storage price increase worldwide, so they need a lot of funding which forces them to enter Black Friday with: full price, more promises, and more FOMO.
#LowEndDetectives
Similar doubts. Strong FOMO vibes - 100% yes.
However, they are not pushing discounts to make more sales (and more total revenue), so they might be at least trying to keep the service profitable (not just take money and deadpool).
Still, that begs the question: do discount sales make more money in total compared to selling fewer plans at regular price.
Another thing I've noticed is that they have been announcing this since their previous black friday sale - along the lines that they might make another sale for this black Friday, but that would probably be it.
Regarding alternatives:
Upload speed and application's sync option are way ahead of what I've experienced with Pcloud's encrypted option (though yes, Pcloud supports rclone so that is a good fix - but less beginner drag&drop friendly).
Also, Pcloud is selling lifetime deals at a discount every few months - that does not sound sustainable unless there is a catch - unless I'm missing something.
Risky either way.
pCloud works with Cryptomator, which is very beginner drag&drop friendly. Check it out
How many non-IT people do you know that use Cryptomator (genuine question, not disputing)?
In my experience, getting "non-IT" people to start using a password manager is difficult enough.
Adding a Cryptomator on top sounds like asking for more problems - if there are simpler alternatives.
It is very hard for someone to answer such question, because it is not tracked. You need a software that tracks its users, in order to have some public statistic about customers. However, things are even more difficult when it comes to a software which is open source, because open-source can simply have tracking code removed if this was attempted.
Precisely because it is open source, I shall dare to assume some projections. For example Mozilla Thunderbird for Android has about 2.6K forks and about 12.8K stars on Github. Meanwhile Cryptomator has 1.2K forks but 14K stars. I would therefore dare to assume that the users would be about half of that for Thunderbird (which is a very known open-source email client) - so Cryptomator in my opinion is way more relevant than you might guess (but I don't know your guess either to go deeper on my assumptions).
That was my point: GitHub metrics don't say anything about non-IT adoption (normal people don't know it exists and much less do they log in to leave a star rating).
Don't get me started on "2FA" LOL.
Let's do that, because we're a technical forum who cares about technical diversity... right?
Sure - please open a separate topic and share what works best for you for getting old, non-tech people to use 2FA. I'm always happy to learn and try new things.
A statistic from CBS, shows that the number of 2FA users has doubled since 2017. About 72% of companies use it in summer of 2025, compared to 57% in 2017. Other statistics searched using DuckDuckGo display quite similar results.
Those stats refer to company use - so, much like Github stars, a skewed statistics for the normal people (at least in Novi Sad and the surrounding places - and that is pretty well developed and connected area).
Having said that, even for my own use, Filen.io and Mega.nz is quite convenient - can't say I mind having one step less to do.
I already noticed you keep choosing convenience. I can't and won't comment on what you use or why. Feel free to choose whatever, or thank whomever.
My backup setup needs to work even for non-technical family members if something happens to me.
Every additional layer increases the chance they can't access my data. Integrated encryption services reduce that friction, while still being reasonably secure.
That's the context behind my preference. Of course, I too don't mind the extra convenience, though for me Hetzner + Rclone is more convenient once configured (though even with that implementation I did leave the directory names unencrypted - for convenience when using ordinary FTP client to move stuff around ).
Thanks for a lot of great insight in this thread! I’m interested to understand why some of you would choose a cloud storage provider over a Storage VPS with something like nextcloud or minio or whatever backup software solution you need?
Is it just for the convenience of their software stack? Or not wanting to maintain it yourself?
Rock Solid Web Hosting, VPS & VDS with a Refreshing Approach - Xeon + EPYC with DDoS protection and Enterprise Hardware! HostBilby Inc.
@bingobangobongo said: Is it just for the convenience of their software stack? Or not wanting to maintain it yourself?
Both of these for me - plus I like the web/phone application more than I do of Nextcloud and similar. Some of the features are nice to have as well, e.g. drive mounting and cli.
@root said:
From what I can gather, they offered lifetime in the past, during previous Black Friday. However, as per their announcement, this Black Friday will "most likely" be the final round with Pro Lifetime plans. This is interesting because there seems to be a lot of fear of missing out used (FOMO), and all of it makes sense from their perspective because "they will be sold at their regular price". This means there will be no discount like in previous Black Friday offers.
All of this triggers a lot of alarm bells in my mind, because Filen does not seem to be that great in popularity, and it comes with a lot of promises. On top of that, they make this lifetime as if it's something big, even though there will be no discounts (just another full price). One can simply buy Koofr or pCloud to get a better deal (discounted price) on Black Friday from established providers, and also get more features which are already there (no promises for this and that).
As a reference, I attach the prices from a previous Black Friday event of theirs, which included both the discount at the time along the full price (which should be expected during the following Black Friday). My honest guess is that they're in crisis due to storage price increase worldwide, so they need a lot of funding which forces them to enter Black Friday with: full price, more promises, and more FOMO.
#LowEndDetectives
Similar doubts. Strong FOMO vibes - 100% yes.
However, they are not pushing discounts to make more sales (and more total revenue), so they might be at least trying to keep the service profitable (not just take money and deadpool).
Still, that begs the question: do discount sales make more money in total compared to selling fewer plans at regular price.
Another thing I've noticed is that they have been announcing this since their previous black friday sale - along the lines that they might make another sale for this black Friday, but that would probably be it.
Regarding alternatives:
Upload speed and application's sync option are way ahead of what I've experienced with Pcloud's encrypted option (though yes, Pcloud supports rclone so that is a good fix - but less beginner drag&drop friendly).
Also, Pcloud is selling lifetime deals at a discount every few months - that does not sound sustainable unless there is a catch - unless I'm missing something.
Risky either way.
pCloud works with Cryptomator, which is very beginner drag&drop friendly. Check it out
How many non-IT people do you know that use Cryptomator (genuine question, not disputing)?
Addmitedly, about a hand ful. But the rest of non-IT people I know doesn't (seem to) care about encrypting their data at all. Those that have approached me and asked how I encrypt my file, have been very happy with Cryptomator.
Of course, smth like pCloud's/Koofr's built-in encrypted vault is probably the easiest way. But then again, I can imagine many people wouldn't even want to enter an extra password. In that case, Internxt (even though I can't especially recommend them) might be the most "secure" out of the box, as they supposedly use a zero-knowledge approach, where there are encrypted shards of your data stored in various locations and only when all those fragmented shards come together, someone will be able to reconstruct the file behind it. This feature comes out of the box. It's probably, why their encryption is painfully slow as a file is encrypted into various shards, uploaded to different locations and then, when you want to open it again, retrieved from all those shards, encrypted and put together. https://help.internxt.com/en/articles/5387164-what-is-zero-knowledge-encryption
Files uploaded to Internxt Drive are fragmented, client-side encrypted, and distributed all over the globe, so that a server never holds a complete file, but instead an encrypted data shard.
In my experience, getting "non-IT" people to start using a password manager is difficult enough.
100% Agree. Why can't I use my birth year as a pin? Why can't I use the same pw everywhere..
Adding a Cryptomator on top sounds like asking for more problems - if there are simpler alternatives.
Like I mentioned above, I've received positive feedback from my non-IT friends that wanted to encrypt their data and asked me for an easy way to do it. And that's one person that is using the Apple Ecosystem solely (and that is not meant to be a prejudice, but from my experience, non-IT Apple users tend to be the most averse to any kind of "modding"/extra technical measures).
If a person asks about encrypting their data - that's a whole new ball game.
That's a person who is willing to learn and try. Practically the opposite of those you mentioned earlier ("birth date," "same password everywhere," etc.).
The amount of "friction" I've faced when recommending an online password manager (like Bitwarden) is huge.
I don't even dare to recommend KeePass - and ways to securely sync it accross multiple different devices, along with backups. That, right at the start, is a huge hurdle to overcome.
So, in practice, with a vast majority of "normal" (LOL) people, simpler solutions that get implemented (like Bitwarden and Filen) are a lot better than the more complex ones that are left at "I'll see about that next week..."
Don't get me started on "2FA" LOL.
I won't. Let's not go there
Having said that, even for my own use, Filen.io and Mega.nz is quite convenient - can't say I mind having one step less to do.
Definitely. Koofr even comes with their free pw protected vault (pCloud charges for pcloud vault), but I don't use it as I cba to always enter my pw in browser. On the other side, Cryptomator auto-unlocks vaults on boot so that's easy enough.
Koofr and Pcloud encrypted "vault" require a separate password and seem to perform very slowly - Filen is a lot better in those terms (and comes with a desktop client that emulates the Rclone sync behaviour via a GUI).
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
Based on the roadmap, new sync app is going to be built... some day (plan was for this year's last quarer, but that's passed in a few days.
They seem to be aware of the bugs and problems - and we'll see if they'll fix them.
Giving it a rest for now (cold storage, no sync, until further ado - and not relying on the cold storage as a real backup until further testing).
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I'll need to check if rclone works wi> @bikegremlin said:
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
Based on the roadmap, new sync app is going to be built... some day (plan was for this year's last quarer, but that's passed in a few days.
They seem to be aware of the bugs and problems - and we'll see if they'll fix them.
Giving it a rest for now (cold storage, no sync, until further ado - and not relying on the cold storage as a real backup until further testing).
Similar to why I'm not using Internxt. They have some sort of proprietary rclone implementation. Waiting until I don't need to use their cli for it.
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I'll need to check if rclone works wi> @bikegremlin said:
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
Based on the roadmap, new sync app is going to be built... some day (plan was for this year's last quarer, but that's passed in a few days.
They seem to be aware of the bugs and problems - and we'll see if they'll fix them.
Giving it a rest for now (cold storage, no sync, until further ado - and not relying on the cold storage as a real backup until further testing).
Similar to why I'm not using Internxt. They have some sort of proprietary rclone implementation. Waiting until I don't need to use their cli for it.
I'm currently using my Koofr lifetime for non sensitive stuff but of course that isn't encrypted The Rsync support has been around for a long time and is very good.
Filen, out of all the lifetime storage services I have (only 100GB from Filen myself), they have been the most...I dunno how to put it, not bug-riddled so much but just generally unstable and inconsistent, with a good dose of "coming soon (tm)." Which for a storage service, of course, is the exact opposite of what you want.
Koofr has been pretty solid (got 1TB from them), I use it for mostly for uploading things to share with friends and family. Only main complaint would be speed, it's a little slow to upload large files, but not terrible.
And so far, at least after only using it for like 2 weeks, Drime has been decent (6TB) but I've only used their web interface so far, they are working on rclone support I believe and also mobile/desktop apps.
Still have hope that Filen will improve though, fully encrypted from the get-go is very nice for various uses of storage!
rclone compatibility makes a cloud storage far more useful. I have lifetime deals with both Filen and Koofr, but I use Koofr more because of rclone. I'd like to see cloud storage providers prioritize rclone, or even make substantial annual donations to keep it alive. Maintaining an open source project that popular can take a huge amount of time.
7 5 years later, Koofr still continued to impress me . Rclone, webdav, google/ one drive integration/ MS Office25 (though I do not use it). Linux client too (don't use it either). @bikegremlin they are (koofr folks) your fellow compradres, right ?
@vyas said:
7 5 years later, Koofr still continued to impress me . Rclone, webdav, google/ one drive integration/ MS Office25 (though I do not use it). Linux client too (don't use it either).
Koofr doesn't come with encryption out of the box.
For using my own encrypt/decrypt, I find Hetzner + Rclone to be the optimal combination, but that is not noob-friendly IMO.
@bikegremlin they are (koofr folks) your fellow compradres, right ?
Yes, I think so.
As @Mumbly noted it's from the serbocroatian word "kofer":
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I'll need to check if rclone works wi> @bikegremlin said:
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
Based on the roadmap, new sync app is going to be built... some day (plan was for this year's last quarer, but that's passed in a few days.
They seem to be aware of the bugs and problems - and we'll see if they'll fix them.
Giving it a rest for now (cold storage, no sync, until further ado - and not relying on the cold storage as a real backup until further testing).
Similar to why I'm not using Internxt. They have some sort of proprietary rclone implementation. Waiting until I don't need to use their cli for it.
I'm currently using my Koofr lifetime for non sensitive stuff but of course that isn't encrypted The Rsync support has been around for a long time and is very good.
Same, kinda. I am using 800GB of TB I have with them. Mostly backups. My phone's photo's get automatically uploaded to pCloud and Koofr.
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I'll need to check if rclone works wi> @bikegremlin said:
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
Based on the roadmap, new sync app is going to be built... some day (plan was for this year's last quarer, but that's passed in a few days.
They seem to be aware of the bugs and problems - and we'll see if they'll fix them.
Giving it a rest for now (cold storage, no sync, until further ado - and not relying on the cold storage as a real backup until further testing).
Similar to why I'm not using Internxt. They have some sort of proprietary rclone implementation. Waiting until I don't need to use their cli for it.
I'm currently using my Koofr lifetime for non sensitive stuff but of course that isn't encrypted The Rsync support has been around for a long time and is very good.
Same, kinda. I am using 800GB of TB I have with them. Mostly backups. My phone's photo's get automatically uploaded to pCloud and Koofr.
I really wish their 2.5GB Lifetime wasn't so pricy, if I remember correctly like 300-500 euro? But I guess we are pretty lucky with what we have.
I also got an Icedrive.net lifetime back in the day which actually does have some encrypted space. To my knowledge they still do offer lifetimes. But I don't know if it can be used with Rsync, especially the encrypted space.
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I'll need to check if rclone works wi> @bikegremlin said:
@bikegremlin said:
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
Based on the roadmap, new sync app is going to be built... some day (plan was for this year's last quarer, but that's passed in a few days.
They seem to be aware of the bugs and problems - and we'll see if they'll fix them.
Giving it a rest for now (cold storage, no sync, until further ado - and not relying on the cold storage as a real backup until further testing).
Similar to why I'm not using Internxt. They have some sort of proprietary rclone implementation. Waiting until I don't need to use their cli for it.
I'm currently using my Koofr lifetime for non sensitive stuff but of course that isn't encrypted The Rsync support has been around for a long time and is very good.
Same, kinda. I am using 800GB of TB I have with them. Mostly backups. My phone's photo's get automatically uploaded to pCloud and Koofr.
I really wish their 2.5GB Lifetime wasn't so pricy, if I remember correctly like 300-500 euro? But I guess we are pretty lucky with what we have.
I also got an Icedrive.net lifetime back in the day which actually does have some encrypted space. To my knowledge they still do offer lifetimes. But I don't know if it can be used with Rsync, especially the encrypted space.
Yeah, I agree. Also kinda sad you can't stack lifetime storage with Koofr. I've got 2,5TB pCloud, 2TB Internxt and 1TB Koofr lifetime. Got enough for now, luckily
This guy below got a great deal back in 2019/2020 (?) with that 1 TB "lifetime" plan. I think the price differential between 1 TB and 250 GB back then was less than 60 Euros. While I have not used more than 130 GB of my 250 GB plan over past 7 years, that 1 TB would have been.... awesome **
@Ympker said:
Same, kinda. I am using 800GB of TB I have with them. Mostly backups. My phone's photo's get automatically uploaded to pCloud and Koofr.
@vyas said:
This guy below got a great deal back in 2019/2020 (?) with that 1 TB "lifetime" plan. I think the price differential between 1 TB and 250 GB back then was less than 60 Euros. While I have not used more than 130 GB of my 250 GB plan over past 7 years, that 1 TB would have been.... awesome **
@Ympker said:
Same, kinda. I am using 800GB of TB I have with them. Mostly backups. My phone's photo's get automatically uploaded to pCloud and Koofr.
@vyas said:
This guy below got a great deal back in 2019/2020 (?) with that 1 TB "lifetime" plan. I think the price differential between 1 TB and 250 GB back then was less than 60 Euros. While I have not used more than 130 GB of my 250 GB plan over past 7 years, that 1 TB would have been.... awesome **
@Ympker said:
Same, kinda. I am using 800GB of TB I have with them. Mostly backups. My phone's photo's get automatically uploaded to pCloud and Koofr.
** FOMO
This was the deal I got in 2019:
Can't complain, really
Wow, very nice! I just checked and I got mine about a year later also with a coupon that brought it up to around 100 by then. Recommended to some friends this black friday and it was up to 140 with the coupon and I think now up to 200 without!!
Comments
@bikegremlin you're rich
Amadex • Hosting Forums • root.hr
I bought the 100 GB lifetime plan almost 4 years ago and although I've barely used the service, they're still in business so I consider it a win. Hopefully they stay in business for both of our sakes
pCloud works with Cryptomator, which is very beginner drag&drop friendly. Check it out
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
Been using Filen since ~2022 and they do have their issues, but have been pretty solid overall. One thing to note is that development is slow as their team was basically 2 or 3 people over the last couple of years.
Although they have hired/are hiring a couple of people recently so hopefully that will change things.
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How many non-IT people do you know that use Cryptomator (genuine question, not disputing)?
In my experience, getting "non-IT" people to start using a password manager is difficult enough.
Adding a Cryptomator on top sounds like asking for more problems - if there are simpler alternatives.
Don't get me started on "2FA" LOL.
Having said that, even for my own use, Filen.io and Mega.nz is quite convenient - can't say I mind having one step less to do.
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
It is very hard for someone to answer such question, because it is not tracked. You need a software that tracks its users, in order to have some public statistic about customers. However, things are even more difficult when it comes to a software which is open source, because open-source can simply have tracking code removed if this was attempted.
Precisely because it is open source, I shall dare to assume some projections. For example Mozilla Thunderbird for Android has about 2.6K forks and about 12.8K stars on Github. Meanwhile Cryptomator has 1.2K forks but 14K stars. I would therefore dare to assume that the users would be about half of that for Thunderbird (which is a very known open-source email client) - so Cryptomator in my opinion is way more relevant than you might guess (but I don't know your guess either to go deeper on my assumptions).
Let's do that, because we're a technical forum who cares about technical diversity... right?
A statistic from CBS, shows that the number of 2FA users has doubled since 2017. About 72% of companies use it in summer of 2025, compared to 57% in 2017. Other statistics searched using DuckDuckGo display quite similar results.
I already noticed you keep choosing convenience. I can't and won't comment on what you use or why. Feel free to choose whatever, or thank whomever.
I reserve the right to license all of my content under: CC BY-NC-ND. Whatever happens on this forum should stay on this forum.
Addmitedly, about a hand ful. But the rest of non-IT people I know doesn't (seem to) care about encrypting their data at all. Those that have approached me and asked how I encrypt my file, have been very happy with Cryptomator.
Of course, smth like pCloud's/Koofr's built-in encrypted vault is probably the easiest way. But then again, I can imagine many people wouldn't even want to enter an extra password. In that case, Internxt (even though I can't especially recommend them) might be the most "secure" out of the box, as they supposedly use a zero-knowledge approach, where there are encrypted shards of your data stored in various locations and only when all those fragmented shards come together, someone will be able to reconstruct the file behind it. This feature comes out of the box. It's probably, why their encryption is painfully slow as a file is encrypted into various shards, uploaded to different locations and then, when you want to open it again, retrieved from all those shards, encrypted and put together. https://help.internxt.com/en/articles/5387164-what-is-zero-knowledge-encryption
Files uploaded to Internxt Drive are fragmented, client-side encrypted, and distributed all over the globe, so that a server never holds a complete file, but instead an encrypted data shard.
100% Agree. Why can't I use my birth year as a pin? Why can't I use the same pw everywhere..
Like I mentioned above, I've received positive feedback from my non-IT friends that wanted to encrypt their data and asked me for an easy way to do it. And that's one person that is using the Apple Ecosystem solely (and that is not meant to be a prejudice, but from my experience, non-IT Apple users tend to be the most averse to any kind of "modding"/extra technical measures).
I won't. Let's not go there
Definitely. Koofr even comes with their free pw protected vault (pCloud charges for pcloud vault), but I don't use it as I cba to always enter my pw in browser. On the other side, Cryptomator auto-unlocks vaults on boot so that's easy enough.
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
That was my point: GitHub metrics don't say anything about non-IT adoption (normal people don't know it exists and much less do they log in to leave a star rating).
Sure - please open a separate topic and share what works best for you for getting old, non-tech people to use 2FA. I'm always happy to learn and try new things.
Those stats refer to company use - so, much like Github stars, a skewed statistics for the normal people (at least in Novi Sad and the surrounding places - and that is pretty well developed and connected area).
My backup setup needs to work even for non-technical family members if something happens to me.
Every additional layer increases the chance they can't access my data. Integrated encryption services reduce that friction, while still being reasonably secure.
That's the context behind my preference. Of course, I too don't mind the extra convenience, though for me Hetzner + Rclone is more convenient once configured (though even with that implementation I did leave the directory names unencrypted - for convenience when using ordinary FTP client to move stuff around
).
Relja
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
Thanks for a lot of great insight in this thread! I’m interested to understand why some of you would choose a cloud storage provider over a Storage VPS with something like nextcloud or minio or whatever backup software solution you need?
Is it just for the convenience of their software stack? Or not wanting to maintain it yourself?
Rock Solid Web Hosting, VPS & VDS with a Refreshing Approach - Xeon + EPYC with DDoS protection and Enterprise Hardware! HostBilby Inc.
Both of these for me - plus I like the web/phone application more than I do of Nextcloud and similar. Some of the features are nice to have as well, e.g. drive mounting and cli.
piximg image hosting
If a person asks about encrypting their data - that's a whole new ball game.
That's a person who is willing to learn and try. Practically the opposite of those you mentioned earlier ("birth date," "same password everywhere," etc.).
The amount of "friction" I've faced when recommending an online password manager (like Bitwarden) is huge.
I don't even dare to recommend KeePass - and ways to securely sync it accross multiple different devices, along with backups. That, right at the start, is a huge hurdle to overcome.
So, in practice, with a vast majority of "normal" (LOL) people, simpler solutions that get implemented (like Bitwarden and Filen) are a lot better than the more complex ones that are left at "I'll see about that next week..."
Koofr and Pcloud encrypted "vault" require a separate password and seem to perform very slowly - Filen is a lot better in those terms (and comes with a desktop client that emulates the Rclone sync behaviour via a GUI).
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
Poor guys. Just use iCloud like me 😎
Amadex • Hosting Forums • root.hr
Turns out that even one-way sync (from local HDD to Filen cloud) is not working reliably via the desktop app (Rclone and CLI support is in experimental or beta phase at best).
That makes the service's use very limited (not completely useless, but pretty close).
This is the first time I asked for a service payment refund (via a ticket - and I'll see if they will do it, it was a lifetime sale).
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
Officially approved by NSA ™
★ 80–85% ↓↓ – NVMe(NL) from 1c EPYC/1G/30G/1T – $12/y (ref), codes: LETMINI80, LETSAILOR80 respectively ／ SSD(US) from 1c/2x256M/2x10G/256G – $5.4/y (ref), ×2 upg. via ticket, codes: SPECIALMINI85, LETSAILOR85, SEAMANSSD85
I was able to get the forked Rclone to work but it was only a test with a few files. CLI didn't work as I was testing this on Alpine and it was built against another library. Hoping Filen can fix these issues soon as it's limiting me as well
Based on the roadmap, new sync app is going to be built... some day (plan was for this year's last quarer, but that's passed in a few days.
They seem to be aware of the bugs and problems - and we'll see if they'll fix them.
Giving it a rest for now (cold storage, no sync, until further ado - and not relying on the cold storage as a real backup until further testing).
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
I'll need to check if rclone works wi> @bikegremlin said:
Similar to why I'm not using Internxt. They have some sort of proprietary rclone implementation. Waiting until I don't need to use their cli for it.
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
I'm currently using my Koofr lifetime for non sensitive stuff but of course that isn't encrypted The Rsync support has been around for a long time and is very good.
Filen, out of all the lifetime storage services I have (only 100GB from Filen myself), they have been the most...I dunno how to put it, not bug-riddled so much but just generally unstable and inconsistent, with a good dose of "coming soon (tm)." Which for a storage service, of course, is the exact opposite of what you want.
Koofr has been pretty solid (got 1TB from them), I use it for mostly for uploading things to share with friends and family. Only main complaint would be speed, it's a little slow to upload large files, but not terrible.
And so far, at least after only using it for like 2 weeks, Drime has been decent (6TB) but I've only used their web interface so far, they are working on rclone support I believe and also mobile/desktop apps.
Still have hope that Filen will improve though, fully encrypted from the get-go is very nice for various uses of storage!
rclone compatibility makes a cloud storage far more useful. I have lifetime deals with both Filen and Koofr, but I use Koofr more because of rclone. I'd like to see cloud storage providers prioritize rclone, or even make substantial annual donations to keep it alive. Maintaining an open source project that popular can take a huge amount of time.
7 5 years later, Koofr still continued to impress me . Rclone, webdav, google/ one drive integration/ MS Office25 (though I do not use it). Linux client too (don't use it either).
@bikegremlin they are (koofr folks) your fellow compradres, right ?
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Koofr doesn't come with encryption out of the box.
For using my own encrypt/decrypt, I find Hetzner + Rclone to be the optimal combination, but that is not noob-friendly IMO.
Yes, I think so.
As @Mumbly noted it's from the serbocroatian word "kofer":
(big travel suitcase you put all your stuff in)
🔧 BikeGremlin guides & resources
Same, kinda. I am using 800GB of TB I have with them. Mostly backups. My phone's photo's get automatically uploaded to pCloud and Koofr.
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
I really wish their 2.5GB Lifetime wasn't so pricy, if I remember correctly like 300-500 euro? But I guess we are pretty lucky with what we have.
I also got an Icedrive.net lifetime back in the day which actually does have some encrypted space. To my knowledge they still do offer lifetimes. But I don't know if it can be used with Rsync, especially the encrypted space.
Yeah, I agree. Also kinda sad you can't stack lifetime storage with Koofr. I've got 2,5TB pCloud, 2TB Internxt and 1TB Koofr lifetime. Got enough for now, luckily
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
This guy below got a great deal back in 2019/2020 (?) with that 1 TB "lifetime" plan. I think the price differential between 1 TB and 250 GB back then was less than 60 Euros. While I have not used more than 130 GB of my 250 GB plan over past 7 years, that 1 TB would have been.... awesome **
** FOMO
blog | exploring visually |
This was the deal I got in 2019:
Can't complain, really
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
Wow, very nice! I just checked and I got mine about a year later also with a coupon that brought it up to around 100 by then. Recommended to some friends this black friday and it was up to 140 with the coupon and I think now up to 200 without!!