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Proton Drive encrypted cloud storage service arrives on Mac

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Proton, a Swiss privacy-focused startup, has expanded its end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) cloud storage service, Proton Drive, to Mac users. Proton Drive, part of Proton’s strategy to provide secure alternatives to mainstream services, offers default full encryption for files, folders, file names, and metadata.

Courtesy of Proton

Four months after it debuted on Windows, the Swiss privacy-focused startup Proton has now made its end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) cloud storage service available to Mac users.

Since its founding about nine years ago, Proton has grown to include VPNs, a password manager, calendars, and yes, cloud storage in addition to its flagship Gmail substitute, Proton Mail.

Following the launch of Proton Drive on the web in September of last year, native mobile apps for iOS and Windows were released in December and July, respectively. With the release of today’s news, Proton Drive has effectively become fully cross-platform, enabling users to synchronize their data across all of their devices.

Courtesy of Proton

Proton Drive is a component of Proton’s larger strategy to launch safe, private Google substitute products. Or, perhaps more accurately for the majority of Mac users, an iCloud substitute from Apple.

While Apple recently introduced end-to-end encryption for certain types of data on iCloud, users must manually activate it. In fact, Proton Drive promises full encryption for files and folders by default. Proton Drive, on the other hand, claims that full encryption is used by default for all data, including file names and metadata.

Proton Drive comes pre-installed with 1GB of storage. Paid plans are also available, with 200GB of storage and extra features like the ability to automatically store older versions of files for up to 10 years, starting at $4/month.

Proton Drive for Mac is currently limited to syncing files to the cloud that are kept in the Proton Drive folder, but the company claims that efforts are underway to allow synchronization for any local folder.

Additionally, the Proton Drive Mac app isn’t currently open source, but the company promises that it will be in due course. Proton has open sourced the majority of its apps over the years, enabling outside parties like security researchers to examine the underlying code.

Additionally, Proton has previously stated that, although it is on its long-term roadmap, it will eventually happen for Linux users.

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