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A few weeks ago, the Swiss privacy-focused tech company had shared an update roadmap for its increasingly powerful ecosystem for apps, and the first of those big changes has arrived on schedule. Proton Drive, the company’s cloud storage service that rivals the likes of Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox and Box, has added a feature called Albums. This gives Proton Drive versatility as a photo backup service on Android devices as well as the Apple iPhone and iPad. This specific feature means Proton Drive squarely has Google Photos in its sights.
This update, and with the roadmap suggesting significant updates for the Docs suite within Drive, improved Drive app for macOS, as well as split-tunnelling additions in ProtonVPN for macOS and Linux, improved categorisation in Proton Mail and File Attachment in Proton Pass being some examples, gives the company enough arsenal to continue to build an alternate ecosystem to Google and Microsoft, as well as specific usability including cloud storage and identity manager apps such as LastPass and Apple Passwords.
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“Highly requested by our community, this new feature enhances Proton Drive’s existing secure file and photo storage experience. Albums lets you manage your memories with ease and privacy — all while continuing to protect your files with Proton’s industry-leading privacy and security safeguards. The only people who can access your images are you and the people you choose,” explains Anant Vijay, Product Lead for Proton Mail and Drive.
The updated Proton Drive adds functionality to organise photos that have already been backed up further into specific albums, creating a shared album, and marking favourite photos within the gallery. Arriving soon, the ability to generate links to share photos via these links, instead of giving a friend or family member access to an entire album.
“Just like everything stored in Proton Drive, every Album you create is protected by end-to-end encryption. That means only the people you choose can access them — album names and metadata like photo locations included. Our advanced privacy and security measures keep your memories safe from advertisers, algorithms, and hackers alike,” Vijay details the privacy layer for Albums in Proton Drive.
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In comparison, Google does encrypt photos backed up by users on Google Cloud, but it isn’t end-to-end encryption. At rest on Google’s servers, the keys to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES; AES-256 specifically), remain with Google. This is the underlier for features such as Gemini powered search, face grouping, and location-based organisation, all of which mostly rely on server-side processing.
It is still a long way to go for Proton, in its pursuit to dent Google Photos’ user base. While the company hasn’t shared numbers in a while, the last official stats Google shared in 2023 pegged Google Photos with 1 million monthly active users, and over 4 trillion photos and videos stored by users, on their cloud. Google Photos has the advantage of having the service preloaded in millions of Android phones worldwide, though regulators in many countries, including India, are increasingly taking note of these practices.
For Google, the Photos service plays an important role in building and unlocking value with Gemini, their artificial intelligence (AI) layer, for Google One subscribers. And that may be a challenge for Proton, because they don’t have an AI model as yet. Google Photos’ AI-driven features, like automatic tagging and location-based search, are still unmatched for accuracy and convenience.
Proton’s timing may well prove to be strategic. There are increasing concerns about data privacy, as the world regularly hears about tech giants utilising user data for training AI models too, in addition to the open secret that defines how personalised advertising is served up.
