Google Drive – time to wake up Google!

A couple of months back I reviewed Google Drive. At the time I noted my disappointment with the slow sync speed as well as various other frustrations. I’d been using Dropbox for quite awhile and decided to move to Drive for integration reasons (I use many Google services) as well as security.

Dropbox now offers competitive security (two-step authentication) and Drive doesn’t seem to have improved at all. In the interim, in the Cloud data storage’space, Microsoft SkyDrive has received a massive boost with the introduction of Windows 8.

I love Google services in general however Google have really messed up Drive! Here are two frustrations that are particularly evident with Google Drive:

Drive Software doesn’t update

If you go to about in Google Drive on your computer you’ll find the version number. Unfortunately there is no way of checking if you are running the latest version of the software nor a means of checking if there is an update available. There is a common perception that the Drive software updates itself however on my three computers it doesn’t update itself.

The only means I know of updating Google Drive is to install the latest version from Google which will overwrite the version you have installed. Why Google can’t just add an update button is beyond logic.

Scanning Web…

The Google Drive app/software on my computer is set to startup on upon login. I’d expect that, as the Dropbox software does, within a few seconds files would begin to sync. Unfortunately for about 10 minutes after the Drive software starts, no files are synced and the message ‘Scanning web…’ appears. I work on multiple computers and rely on my files being in sync. Drive is very detrimental to productivity.

Google has really got their ‘Dropbox-like’ cloud storage solution horribly wrong. It would just be nice of Google at least to try to fix the problems or communicate what they are doing to resolve the issues.