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Dropbox-for-Google Insync leaves beta, goes free and opens doors for business

by Erica Sadun Dec 30th 2011 at 10:00AM

Advertising itself as a cheaper Dropbox alternative with a better feature set, Insync has been in closed beta for the last 15 months. Now, they're finally ready to launch with a service that tightly integrates into Google Docs. It's "8x cheaper" than Dropbox, according to their marketing; in fact, the core service is now free, and customers who paid for the service during the beta period will be offered a refund or premium service credit. The only cost for basic membership is the cost of Google storage.

Insync brings a number of novel features to the table, differentiating it from Dropbox's current service. For example, you can share individual files with more granularity -- not just as public links, but specifying read-write or read-only permissions. You can also revoke a sharing link, which isn't possible on Dropbox unless you move or delete the shared file.

All your files live inside your Google Docs account, but that doesn't mean you're limited to the supported Google file types; any file can be synced over, as long as it's less than 10GB in size (assuming you have that much room in your storage allocation).

You can nest sharing privileges so people have access to just part of a folder structure. You can also set re-sharing permissions, specifying whether those you share with can re-share that material or not. Share recipients are not charged against their storage quota.

Insync supports multiple Google accounts and uses Google's storage system. Google starts with 1GB free storage, and then moves to 20GB for $5/year up to 16 TB for $4096/year. Dropbox's pricing rates includes 2GB free storage, and then jump to 50 GB paid storage at $10/month. Dropbox's 50 GB will cost you $120/year compared to Google's $20/year for 80 GB. That's $0.25 per GB per year for Google Docs versus $2 per GB per year for Dropbox.

To use Insync, you sign in with your Google credentials and permit it to gain access to Google Docs. You then download and install the client software on your computer. From there, you launch, link the Google account to your machine, and you're ready to go. On OS X, all your Google Docs appear in a Finder window.

In its current incarnation, Insync feels a lot like Dropbox, including its menu bar widget and small status indicators next to files (both Egnyte and Box.com use similar UI conventions for their respective cloud sync tools). If you're used to Dropbox, then you already know how to use Insync.



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Advertising itself as a cheaper Dropbox alternative with a better feature set, Insync has been in closed beta for the last 15 months....
 

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Senad Dizdar

InSync is cool. Nice job. Much better than version released last year (or something like that).

But in case if you want so sync Google Docs <-> Dropbox (SugarSync or Basecamp), you should try https://cloudHQ.net/.
cloudHQ sync's and replicates your data in cloud in real time. For example, you can replicate multiple Google Docs accounts with Dropbox. Or can do two-way sync of GDocs with Basecamp so you can have all your Basecamp projects and attachments in Google Docs.

For example, with https://cloudHQ.net/ you can replicate multiple Google Docs accounts with Dropbox. Or can do two-way sync of GDocs with Basecamp so you can have all your Basecamp projects and attachments in Google Docs. Or you can save money by archiving rarely used data from Dropbox to Google Docs.

January 07 2012 at 3:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Scionwest

I came back here to revise a previous comment I made regarding this only to find that it had been deleted. Sure like to know why anyone needs to remove my comments when there was nothing wrong with them.

Original Comment:
"After downloading and installing I noticed various oddities with my
google account. Also I couldn't locate anyway to access tech support.
The site seems very shrouded which concerns me. Their e-mail
confirmation also didn't Contain any info other than "Install our
client".
I'll be uninstalling this. I do t trust it with my data. I even had my
google account text me to let me know my Account was accessed from
another machine and I needed to enter a pin to confirm. This service
worries me."

Revised comment:
After posting my original comment, the CEO of the company contacted me and we discussed a couple things that I addressed in my first comment. He agreed that the sign up e-mail didn't have the information that it should and agreed that their site needs to explain what it does to people better. He also took the time to let me know that all of my account info is not being handled by them, but by Google, which I knew but was still concerned after my account was accessed elsewhere from someone.

I like the concept that they have and the price point. I'm going to wait on using it fully until their iPhone app is released. I rely to much on the Dropbox app to move off until I have a replacement.

Now lets see if this comment gets deleted too, since all it does is mention good things about the product >_>

December 30 2011 at 11:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Zachary Alex Stern

This sounds great, but am I going to end up with a super-cluttered list of random files that I can't even open, when I open docs.google.com?

December 30 2011 at 8:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Zachary Alex Stern's comment
Terence Pua

That depends if you want to edit them online in GDocs. Or you can just use GDocs as a generic datastore.

December 30 2011 at 9:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
CloudGaming

I already get Google Docs to desktop sync using SMEStorage.com with the added benefit of being able to manage my free DropBox and SkyDrive accoun with as it makes them all look like a single Cloud, accessible from a single file system view. Oh, and it supports Windows Phone natively, which for me is needed.

December 30 2011 at 8:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Justin DoCanto

It might be 8x cheaper but it also has 8x less functionality.

I want to cancel my account and can't even figure out how!

Do not recommend. Dropbox is 8x better & 8x worth the money.

December 30 2011 at 7:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Justin DoCanto's comment
Terence Pua

Just revoke access to insynchq.com from your Google account page and we no longer have access to your files.

Would love to hear your thoughts on what functionality we need to add. Thanks.

December 30 2011 at 9:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kaggy

https://plus.google.com/settings/general
Go to Authorizing applications and sites: edit

I think removing it from there should sort of remove it.

December 30 2011 at 10:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Paul McCann

Anyone have the lowdown on how Google's storage stacks up against Amazon's S3 (which Dropbox uses). Amazon is really expensive --do the calculation of how much 50GB costs per year with Amazon and Dropbox looks like a really good deal-- but that expense gets you a boatload of redundancy and so forth. Insync has a faint hint of looking for the cheapest way to mimic Dropbox.

More generally, the great things about Dropbox that aren't yet there for Insync include a Linux client, mobile clients for iOS/Android, and integration with myriad applications (especially on OS X and iOS). Still feels like good value to me...

December 30 2011 at 5:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Numi Castillo

Not too comfortable with the requirements

Insync is requesting permission to:
View your email address
View the email address associated with your account
View basic information about your account
View your name, public profile URL, and photo
View your gender and birthdate
View your country, language, and timezone
Manage your documents
View and manage your documents in Google Docs
Upload new documents
Manage your spreadsheets
View and manage your spreadsheets in Google Docs
Manage your contacts
View and manage your Google Contacts
Perform these operations when I'm not using the application

December 30 2011 at 12:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Numi Castillo's comment
Zachary Alex Stern

Uhhhh those seem totally reasonable for this type of service.

December 30 2011 at 8:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gk00000000091799

If insync's client software is anything like google musics - then I'll be sticking with Dropbox.

December 30 2011 at 12:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
DC

What are the thoughts on the Terms and Conditions for this service?

I like the reasonable cost and was ready to sign up but after reading through the TC I'm not so sure now.

December 30 2011 at 11:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gmerin

Google only appears to accept Google Wallet as payment for additional space. Since they allowed some kid to hack my Wallet account (and I caught it, not Google) I no longer trust them with my payment info, thus I'll stay with Dropbox which has much more flexible policies. Google has to start paying attention and acknowledge that they are not the only player.

December 30 2011 at 11:08 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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