Stephan Paukner :: syslog

I noticed that Tresorit Solo suddenly ramped up total space from 1 TB to 2 TB without any notice or extra charges. I hope this change is permanent.

Btw, since my (somewhat forced) migration from Wuala 2½ years ago I’m even more convinced of their service. Their clients for Windows, GNU/Linux & Android are very convenient and reliable. Recently they made a big revamp of their visual appearance and clients (even that for Linux).

The only thing that’s a bit odd is that they make artificial restrictions to file and directory names. In earlier versions, these files were simply and silently(!) not uploaded if they ended with a blank or dot. I was surprised and slightly shocked that these files were simply not protected, without being aware of it. Luckily, with their recent client updates, there’s now a possibility to view a list of affected files. Boy, was I surprised that there were even more restrictions: They disallow characters that Windows does not support in file names, such as

In addition, there are name collisions reported when file names only differ in capitalization, all of which are perfect features of Linux file systems that I got used to over the years. Another thing is hidden directories in Linux, which start with a dot. Some day they simply and silently didn’t get uploaded anymore. Luckily, I didn’t have to rename that many files and directories, but they were in the dozens, though. Other users could be off much worse. Finally, after renaming, those affected files got uploaded—they were in the hundreds, and I had thought they’d already been in the cloud since months.

Apart from that, I can fully recommend their service, even more now that they cost me 0.09 €/GB per year.

Being so content with Wuala’s features I gulped when I read that they shut their service down. At least they partnered with Tresorit, another Swiss zero-knowledge cloud storage provider, to provide a dedicated transition path. Tresorit had failed for me in my research last year, because they didn’t provide a Linux client—meanwhile, they do, but it’s still a beta. In addition, there’s no easy way to test their service other than during a 14-day trial. [Update 25 Aug: The trial period is now 30 days.]

Rather than looking at what they had in common, I checked Tresorit against my usual requirements, and sadly, it misses a few points:

• There’s no on-demand-only download of files like in Wuala. You either sync 100% of a GB-heavy “Tresor”, or not at all. In Wuala, you could browse through the directory tree without allocating much disk space. [Update 25 Aug: Their desktop client is also a cloud file browser, where you can explicitly download files from unsynced Tresors.]
• The client doesn’t provide an unencrypted view of an encrypted data container on the disk while it runs. If the client shuts down, the files remain plainly unencrypted in the file system like with Dropbox. [Update 25 Aug: Files remain unencrypted only if you actually sync a Tresor.]
• There’s only a Premium plan with 100 GB for one user, or a Business plan with 1 TB for at least two users. If you only need 200 or 300 GB, you’re out of luck, as it seems. [Update 25 Aug: For Wuala switchers, their Business plan is now also available for a single user, what means 1 TB for just double the price.]

Luckily, they have planned to implement the first two, but that could take a while.

And, other than Wuala’s and Tresorit’s recommendation to export Wuala’s data once and import it as a single Tresor into Tresorit, I found out it’s much better to reorganize Wuala’s subfolders into dedicated Tresors. This makes sense, because you can configure which Tresors to sync on each machine. This way, you could e.g. create a dedicated Tresor for each employer and sync only that, so you don’t accidentally put private or third-party data onto your employer’s machines. Should you need access to one of those unsynced Tresors, though, you either do have to sync it (100%), use their web client (but file download failed in my first test), or use one of your mobile clients. [Update 25 Aug: Their desktop client is also a cloud file browser, where you can explicitly download files from unsynced Tresors.]

But, so far their service looks promising. Their clients are much more modern; e.g. Wuala’s Java desktop app or Android app have been an inferior UX. I neither know Wuala’s nor Tresorit’s user numbers, but that kind-of “merger” might generate a user base that helps Tresorit survive for a while.

And never forget: Any item in the cloud should only be a copy of an item on one of your disks.

I’m using Wuala’s cloud storage for some years now, and I tried to challenge the status quo to see if there are better alternatives available in the meantime. The main requirement for me is a zero-knowledge provider, a provider that does not know my password and cannot decrypt my data (without brute force). I found these candidates:

Wuala, Tresorit, SpiderOak, MEGA, SeaFile

(Note that SeaFile is a self-hosted open-source solution.) The next requirement is location: Servers should not be located in the USA, and there should be an Android client that supports upload ...

Wuala, Tresorit, SpiderOak^{Double-Plonk!}, MEGA, SeaFile

... and there should be an official Linux client ...

Wuala, Tresorit^Plonk!, MEGA, SeaFile

... and the service shouldn’t require exotic TCP ports such that clients work behind a corporate firewall ...

Wuala, MEGA, SeaFile^Plonk!

... and the service should support file revisions, download on demand only, and files should stay encrypted on client exit ...

Wuala, MEGA^{Triple-Plonk!}

Way to go, Wuala!

Since I plan to back up my worthy RAW pictures into the cloud (Why?), I collected some reference values of various cloud storage providers with the following important conditions in mind:

1. Support for GNU/Linux
2. Support for Android
3. Available for Europeans

The following graph lists the various providers I found and plots their available volume packages against their prices:

All prices are per year, with a fixed exchange ratio of 1 EUR = ¹⁰∕₇ USD. Lower is better. Dashed lines indicate a violation of the proposed conditions—see below.

In the following I provide a short summary for each provider, and a conclusion of my personal considerations.