Google's Insync Service No Longer in Beta - Good Alternative to Dropbox

[Akshay Masand]

Google’s Insync has been in closed beta for the last 15 months while advertising itself as a cheaper Dropbox alternative with a better feature set. The company is now finally ready to launch with a service that tightly integrates into Google Docs. According to their marketing, the service is “8x cheaper” than Dropbox and furthermore, the core service is now free. Customers who previously 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.

For those of you who didn’t know, Insync brings a number of unique features to the table, which helps differentiate itself from Dropbox’s current service. An example of this would be the ability to share individual files with more granularity, not just as public links, but with the option of specifying read-write or read-only permissions. Furthermore, you can also revoke a sharing link, which isn’t possible on Dropbox unless you move or delete the shared file. You can also nest sharing privileges so people might have access to just part of a folder structure. Users are also given the option to set re-sharing permissions, specifying whether those you share with can re-share that material or not. Recipients aren’t charged against their storage quota either, which is quite useful. Last but not least, the files all 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 is less than 10GB in size.

The Insync service supports multiple Google accounts and uses Google’s storage system, starting with 1GB of free storage and moving up to 20GB for $5/year up to 16TB for $4096/year. If you compare prices here, Dropbox’s pricing rates include 2GB of free storage and jump to 50GB paid storage at $10/moth. Dropbox’s 50GB will end up costing users $120/year compared to Google’ s$20/year for 80GB. With some quick math, you’ll come to realize that Google’s service will cost you $0.25/GB per year compared to Dropbox’s $2/GB per year.

If you are interested in using Insync, you can sign in with your Google credentials and permit it to gain access to Google Docs. All you have to do then is download and install the client software on your computer. Once installed, you launch, link the Google account to your machine, and you’ll be ready to go. For those of you using the Mac OS X, all of your Google Docs will appear in a Finder window. As of right now, Insync feels very similar to Dropbox, even when you look at its menu bar widget and small status indicators next to files (with other competitors such as Egnyte and Box.com using similar UI conventions for their respective cloud sync tools as well). If you’ve used Dropbox, then you’ll figure out how to use Insync rather quickly.

Do any of you think you'll be utilizing the new service? Have any of you already hopped the bandwagon? If so, share any thoughts and opinions below!

Source: Insync

[s0ulp1xel]

Cool but Box.com is better

[Daerid]

I need something inexpensive and portable across all devices (iOS, OSX, & Windows). If this is the key then I'm in.

[teej1410]

Dropbox is better. I get 2GB free. Other than that yeah this seems cheaper

[oneduality]

Cool but Box.com is better

How? The only thing I see that is better is that you get 5gb free vs 1gb free

After that, the isync service is far more affordable than any of the others I've seen .. I signed up for the 20gb option at $5.00 a year because that's extremely cheap.

It was super simple to set up, I just downloaded the client, linked my pc and it was done.. after that it's just like drop box! I also like how easy it is to share links to my content if I want to.

The focus with isync seems to be simplicity and for that, it's pure win.. that and the price is hard to beat! especially considering that your storage can be shared by all of the google services if you go over on any of them.

[thetoothfairy]

^^ 2GB isn't much these days

[oneduality]

Dropbox is better. I get 2GB free. Other than that yeah this seems cheaper

I've been using drop box since it came out, I agree it's very good .. but the price when you want to go beyond the 2gb limit can't beat this new service..

$5.00 per YEAR for 20gb is hard to beat.. I couldn't resist

[thetoothfairy]

This is great... it gives dropbox and iCloud some competition!

[jadid]

Awesome! I'm In!

[hookedonkronix]

Dropbox has the referral option that gives you up to 8gb for free. Box.net gives you 50gb (yes fifty) for free but box doesn't have a good osx client like dropbox. 1gb with insync isn't that much to entice people to stick with them.

[TooSlo]

There are frequently specials with box.com that give you 50gb of storage. I have two of those accounts, and doubt I need more than the 100gb I currently have. Biggest limit is 100mb max file size, but you can creatively get around that with winrar.

[A3gOwner]

Why not just use skydrive they give 25 gigs free storage with the 100mb limit? There's an app in app store that allows uploads of pics and videos from your phone.

[jbardi]

Never mind

[ericwall]

Cool but Box.com is better

Box.net.

[duromega]

I'm thinking about it I have 4gb free in Dropbox and 25Gb free in skydrive

[jOnGarrett]

How? The only thing I see that is better is that you get 5gb free vs 1gb free

After that, the isync service is far more affordable than any of the others I've seen .. I signed up for the 20gb option at $5.00 a year because that's extremely cheap.

It was super simple to set up, I just downloaded the client, linked my pc and it was done.. after that it's just like drop box! I also like how easy it is to share links to my content if I want to.

The focus with isync seems to be simplicity and for that, it's pure win.. that and the price is hard to beat! especially considering that your storage can be shared by all of the google services if you go over on any of them.

box.net and dropbox have apps for all mobile devices. dropbox also has a desktop client.

[JesseDegenerate]

I've been using drop box since it came out, I agree it's very good .. but the price when you want to go beyond the 2gb limit can't beat this new service..

$5.00 per YEAR for 20gb is hard to beat.. I couldn't resist

dropbox is some dudes, this is now owned by google.

I will not take part ever in google pretending to be nice while taking over an industry. Still shocked this made it out of beta. When online storage becomes $5/per TB per year, that's when i won't be able to ignore it.

[primilous]

no linux support? no care.

[TooSlo]

Box.net.

They actually refer to themselves as just Box now, and both domains (.net and .com) forward to box.com.

[teej1410]

This is great... it gives dropbox and iCloud some competition!

There's so many online backup/storage sites now. It kind of ridiculous but I'll still use Dropbox because I haven't used up my 2GB yet and many apps support it.