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pCloud Cloud Storage Review

March 30, 2020 By Heinrich Long — 20 Comments
ServicepCloud
Based inSwitzerland
Free VersionYes
Price$4.99/mo; 500 GB
Websitewww.pCloud.com

pCloud review

Today we’re going to look at pCloud, a secure file storage service with a number of interesting features, but some real drawbacks for the most security-conscious users.

We’ll start out this pCloud review by examining the Pros and Cons before diving into the details.

+ Pros

  • Free 14-day trial
  • 10GB free storage
  • Optional end-to-end encryption with pCloud Crypto
  • Includes 30-day version tracking
  • Optional Extended File History (EFH) tracks 360 days of file versions
  • GDPR compliant
  • Drag-and-drop backup
  • Company based in Switzerland
  • Supports both encrypted and unencrypted files in the same account
  • Can sync unencrypted data with Facebook and other services
  • Drag and drop backup folder (pCloud Drive)
  • Customizable sharing links
  • Built-in media player

– Cons

  • Free version is limited
  • Data stored in the United States
  • Extra charge for pCloud Crypto and Extended File History (EFH)
  • Not open source

pCloud feature summary

Talking about pCloud is a little different than talking about other cloud storage services we’ve reviewed. That’s because pCloud allows for both encrypted and unencrypted data to appear in the same account. We’ll go into how this works later. For now, what you need to know is that many of pCloud’s features will only work on unencrypted (insecure) data. Here is a quick summary of the features of pCloud:

  • Runs on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Android, iOS, and major browsers
  • All your data is encrypted when in transit between your devices and the pCloud servers
  • Secure, zero-knowledge encryption is available through pCloud Crypto, an optional paid feature
  • By default, the system maintains the last 30 days worth of file versions. You can extend that to 360 days with Extended File History (EFH), an optional paid feature
  • There are cool features like the ability to play media files, but most only work on unencrypted (unsecure) files
  • Synchronizes across all your devices and browsers

Company information

pCloud AG (the publisher of pCloud) is a privately held company based in Baar, Switzerland. Founded in 2013, this small company (approximately 30 employees) says they have over 10.5 million users around the world.

Being based in Switzerland is good for the security of your data. Switzerland is a neutral country that is not part of any international intelligence organizations (as far as I know). The country also has stronger privacy and security laws than most nations. However, as we are about to see, there is a potential problem.

Where does pCloud store user data?

While pCloud is based in Switzerland, their data center is in the United States.

This means the data center is subject to the less-privacy friendly legal system of the USA. Not to mention the United States is the home of the NSA and who knows how many other intelligence agencies. The country also is at the heart of the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes and various other international intelligence organizations.

So why review them? Because pCloud offers an optional zero knowledge encryption feature.

What is zero knowledge encryption?

As we discussed recently in our SpiderOak ONE review, a zero knowledge system is one where the cloud storage service knows nothing about your data. They can’t read the data itself, and they can’t see things like file names or sizes, folder names, or who is allowed to view files. While this usage doesn’t match the way the phrase is used in the cryptography community, it is close enough for our purposes here.

A zero knowledge system should make a cloud storage service secure, regardless of where the data center is located. The data center could be forced to turn over your data to the government (or hackers could steal it), but there is no way for them to glean any useful information from what they receive.

How does pCloud’s zero knowledge system work?

I have a few concerns about pCloud’s zero knowledge system. The system is called pCloud Crypto, and it is an optional feature available for an extra charge. With it, data gets encrypted on your device, using encryption keys you control. pCloud never sees your keys, meaning they have no way to decrypt your data. It appears to be pretty impressive tech (brief intro here). I have no reason to doubt that pCloud Crypto is secure. Indeed, a few years back they ran a challenge to see if anyone could crack their system.

The pCloud Encryption Challenge invited hackers to test the company's client-side encryption

2,860 participants from over 600 organizations had 180 days to hack the pCloud encryption software. The prize? $100,000. The result? 0 hacks.

That’s pretty impressive. My concern is that the code is not open source. That means there is no way to verify that it works as advertised, with no hidden back doors or other ways to get around the encryption. The ability to look into the code and see exactly how it works is one of the main reasons privacy-oriented people love open source code so much. As President Ronald Reagan liked to say, trust but verify (Doveryai, no proveryai). That you can’t do so with pCloud’s code counts as a strike against it.

My second concern about pCloud’s encryption has to do with the design of the service. By default, your data is encrypted in transit to and from pCloud’s servers, and encrypted at rest on those servers. But pCloud holds the encryption keys. This means that someone on their end could technically decrypt and read your data using those keys. Or the US government could force them to do so, perhaps including a gag order so you wouldn’t even know your data was compromised.

pCloud Crypto is a partial solution to this problem. I don’t say that because of any doubts about the capability of pCloud Crypto, but because it doesn’t get applied to all your files. Only files that you store in a special Crypto Folder get encrypted by pCloud Crypto. The rest of your files are encrypted with the keys that pCloud controls. This approach is necessary for the service to provide many of its features, including file sharing, but it does mean that only certain of your files will get the full zero knowledge treatment.

We’ll talk more about all this later. Right now we need to take a look at the legal stuff and decide if there is anything here that is a definite show stopper. We’ll start with the Terms of Service.

pCloud Terms and Conditions

The most recent pCloud Terms and Conditions are found on a long (over 6,300 words) and complicated Terms and Conditions page. This page was updated 17 March 2020.

Points of interest in the Terms and Conditions:

  • You must be at least 18 years old to use pCloud.
  • pCloud can cancel your account for any reason without compensation to you.
  • They will make reasonable efforts to maintain at least 99.9% availability of the service, but they urge you to make your own backups of everything.
  • You promise to not do anything bad to the service, use it for anything bad, use any of their trademarks, intellectual property, and so on without their permission.
  • If any of your download links generate too much traffic (in pCloud’s opinion) they may limit the traffic for that link.
  • By using the service, you give pCloud certain rights to use the content you post there. The User Content section of the document is complicated, so if you plan on putting your own content on pCloud, I suggest you read the User Content section of the ToS carefully.
  • Since pCloud stores your data in the United States, they must comply with the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). The Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy section of the page covers all the relevant details.
  • There’s a dense Encryption section on your rights and responsibilities when using pCloud Crypto too.
  • pCloud disavows any responsibility for any interactions or conflicts you have with other users of the service.
  • There are large sections of legalese on Disclaimers and Limitation of pCloud’s liabilities, one for customers in the European Union and another for everyone else.

pCloud Privacy Policy

The pCloud Privacy Policy is another long and complicated document that was updated 17 March 2020. I dug into this policy to see how it might affect your decision on whether or not to use this secure cloud storage service.

Points of interest in the Privacy Policy:

  • The company collects your email address when you create an account.
  • If you select a paid plan or optional features, they collect billing information.
  • When you use the service they, “collect information about you such as length of visit, page views and navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your usage, operating system, device information, behavior, visited pages, etc.” They state that this anonymous information can not be identified directly with you. Since their code is not open source, you need to take their work for this.
  • They may collect personal data:
    • From payment processors
    • From or about friends you connect with through pCloud
    • From third-party services you choose to back up using pCloud
  • There is a long list of uses they make of the personal data they collect
  • There is a long list of the circumstances under which they may disclose your personal information without your permission
  • On the bright side, they do not share your personal information with third-parties for marketing purposes
  • They do not sell your personal information to third parties
  • They take reasonable steps to protect your unencrypted data, and will notify you if they get hacked

pCloud security audits, certifications, and compliance

I wasn’t able to find any published audits of pCloud security. They do however have some relevant certifications:

  • ISO 9001:2015 – Quality Management Systems (QMS) – This ensures that customers get consistent, high quality products and services.
  • ISO 27001:2013 – Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) – Helps businesses establish and maintain an effective information security management system.
  • SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type II – “pCloud hosts user data through a leading certified data center via collocation. When using the pCloud service user’s data is transferred to our outsourced servers via TLS/SSL protocol and is copied on at least three server locations in a highly secure certified data center in Dallas, Texas, USA. Our collocated service provider is certified for SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type II that ensures the highest level of security.”

These are all good things to have, and ensure that pCloud is doing the right things. However, I would prefer to see even one third-party security audit. That would show that the security actually worked against real threats.

Finally, pCloud has a full GDPR compliance center that explains the benefits of GDPR for users.

pCloud user interfaces

pCloud does a great job of giving you access to your data through all the important channels: the desktop, mobile devices, and web browsers.

Let’s take a look at each of these interfaces now.

pCloud desktop app and pCloud Drive

As with most cloud storage services, when you install pCloud on your desktop, you are actually installing an app that runs in the system tray and handles synchronization tasks. Right-clicking the icon for this app gives you a menu of options:

pCloud review and test

The organization here is a little confusing, so stick with me and we’ll cover everything. The menu options include:

  • Pause – Pauses synchronization of files and folders.
  • Notifications – Opens a small window displaying any important info pCloud might have for you.
  • An informational line of text that tells you how much of your available storage you are currently using.
  • Preferences – Opens the main desktop control center for pCloud:

pCloud Drive app

There are seven sections here that give you control over everything pCloud does. They are:

  1. Account – Gives you control over account settings, options to upgrade to a paid plan, buttons for access to pCloud Drive, the web interface for your account, and the Trash, where you will find all the files you deleted in the last 15 days (or longer if you have a paid plan). There’s also an unlink button which lets you disconnect this computer from the service.
  2. Sync – Lets you synchronize local folders on this machine with pCloud Drive. This way you can have those folders backed up to the pCloud servers, without having to change their locations.
  3. Shares – Allows you to share the contents of selected folders with other people. Be aware that there is a monthly download link traffic limit imposed on content other people download from your shared folders. The free version of pCloud has a 50 GB per month limit. Premium plans have a 500 GB per month limit, and Premium Plus plans have a 2 TB per month limit.
  4. Crypto – Work with pCloud Crypto. We’ll talk about this later.
  5. Settings – Adjust various pCloud settings to suit your own circumstances. You probably won’t have to touch these.
  6. Help – Links you to the pCloud FAQ (the main pCloud help resource) as well as their blog and customer support.
  7. About – Check for updates, view the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Intellectual Property Policy.

But what about pCloud Drive?

We’ve alluded to pCloud Drive a few times. This is a virtual disk drive that pCloud creates on your computer. Any files you store in pCloud Drive behave the same as if they are stored on your computer. However, they are actually stored on the pCloud servers, rather than locally on your computer.

pCloud Drive looks like a folder, just another disk drive on you computer. You can work with files in it as if they were stored on a local disk drive, but they don’t take up any space on your local drive since they are actually stored in the cloud.

pCloud Drive

This is in contrast to services like MEGA, which have a similar folder for synchronizing files. In the MEGA approach, the folder is a real folder on your computer. Anything you store in that folder is backed up to MEGA’s servers, but also retained in the folder on your computer.

In the pCloud approach, files you put in the pCloud Drive folder are stored on pCloud’s servers. The file doesn’t exist on the local machine. As a result, with the MEGA approach, you can work with the files even when not connected to the Internet. However, with pCloud, you must have an active Internet connection to work with your files.

What about pCloud Crypto?

pCloud Crypto is an optional component of pCloud. It provides client-side encryption. It uses an encryption key you create (called a Crypto Pass in pCloud jargon) that is used to encrypt the files before they leave your desktop or mobile device. pCloud has no access to your Crypto Pass, meaning that they cannot decrypt your files.

This is in contrast to the standard approach followed by pCloud. Normally, when you put a file into pCloud Disk, the app encrypts the file using the AES-256 encryption algorithm. Then it applies TLS/SSL, an additional layer of encryption that protects the file while it is in transit from your device to their servers. Once the file arrives at the pCloud servers, the TLS/SSL encryption is removed, leaving your file still encrypted with AES-256.

This sounds secure, and it is. But there is a hitch. To provide some of the features of the service, pCloud needs to be able to read your files. And they can do so because they control the encryption keys for the TLS/SSL and for the AES-256 encryption that protects the file when it is not in transit. In other words, with the standard pCloud approach, your files are secure against anyone, except pCloud.

pCloud Crypto eliminates this potential security issue by allowing you to encrypt the file yourself, before it goes through the regular pCloud process. There is no way for anyone at pCloud to read your files since you control the innermost layer of encryption.

Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to using pCloud Crypto to encrypt all your files. Since pCloud can’t read these files, you won’t be able to do things like play them or share them in pCloud. In addition, all files protected by pCloud Crypto have to be stored in a special crypto folder. The tradeoff here is stronger security vs convenience and features.

pCloud mobile apps

pCloud provides useful, attractive apps for both iOS and Android devices.

Here’s a screenshot of the pCloud Android app:

pCloud Android app

The pCloud Android and iOS apps get good marks in their respective app stores (4.4 out of 5.0 for the Android app and 4.1 out of 5.0 for the iOS). They both give you the full range of features you would expect. You can even use pCloud Crypto with the mobile apps.

pCloud web interface: my.pcloud.com

The pCloud web interface (my.pcloud.com) is likewise an attractive and functional interface to all your data.

pCloud Drive web interface

Hands-on testing for the pCloud review

For this pCloud review, I tested the free trial version of pCloud desktop client on systems running Microsoft Windows 10 Home (version 1909) and Ubuntu 18.04. I tested the Android app on a Samsung Galaxy S9+.

Installing pCloud

Installing the pCloud desktop client on both the Windows and Ubuntu machines wasn’t hard. However, if you are a beginner, you might find it confusing. Let me explain…

pCloud on Windows 10

I downloaded the app from the pCloud website without problems. However, when I tried to run it, Windows 10 threw up this warning:

pCloud Windows 10

This looks ominous. But I downloaded pCloud from the company website, so I had to assume that it was legitimate. I clicked the Run anyway button. Everything went smoothly from there.

pCloud on Linux (Ubuntu)

The Ubuntu version of pCloud comes as an Appimage. An Appimage is a way of distributing Linux software (Ubuntu is a form of Linux) that works on many different versions of Linux, without requiring you to have superuser rights.

The way you install and run an Appimage is different than for a normal app. The instructions pCloud gives you are clear, but if you have never worked with an Appimage before, you might want to check out this page for more information.

Configuring pCloud

pCloud offers you a lot of options, but you can use it without configuring anything. Once you have installed the desktop app, you will have the basics ready to go. To start storing your files on the pCloud server, simply move them to the pCloud Drive folder.

However, once again, things are a little confusing. You should see a pCloud Drive icon on your desktop that looks like this:

pCloud desktop app

You might expect that double-clicking this icon would open the pCloud Drive folder – but it doesn’t. Instead, it opens the desktop app to the Crypto tab:

pCloud Crypto

Switch to Settings to change any settings you wish.

Using pCloud

At its most basic, using pCloud entails copying or moving files into the pCloud Drive folder. You have two options to get to the pCloud Drive folder:

  1. One is to navigate there using your operating system’s file manager.
  2. The other is to right-click the pCloud icon in the system tray and select the Open Drive menu option.

Remember that the pCloud Drive folder is actually virtual storage. The files and folders you see there exist on the pCloud servers, not on your computer. Depending on your threat model and the availability of a full-time Internet connection, you may want to make your own backups of files you store in pCloud Drive.

But there is more to pCloud than this virtual drive.

Syncing local folders

If you go to the Sync page in the desktop app you can set up local folders to be synchronized with pCloud Drive. For these folders, every file in the local folder is copied to a corresponding folder in pCloud Drive. This leaves you with a copy of the file in each location. Benefits to this include:

  • You don’t have to move the files and/or folder from its current location on your local drive
  • You will have access to the files in the local folder, even if you cannot connect to the pCloud servers through pCloud Drive

Drawbacks to this include:

  • More disk space use since the files exist both on your local drive and on the pCloud servers
  • Because the files are synched, rather than copied, if you delete a synched file on the local drive, it will be deleted in pCloud Drive as well

Using pCloud Crypto

If you invest in pCloud Crypto, you can use pCloud as end-to-end encrypted cloud storage. Once you sign up for pCloud Crypto, you can go to the Crypto page of the desktop app and create your Crypto Pass. Crypto Pass is the encryption key that will be used to encrypt files on your device. It is also the password that reveals a hidden Crypto Folder inside the pCloud Drive folder.

To encrypt a file with pCloud Crypto:

  1. Open the pCloud app and go to the Crypto page.
  2. Unlock the Crypto Folder using your Crypto Pass.
  3. Drop the file you want to encrypt into the Crypto Folder. The pCloud app will automatically encrypt the file.

Once you are done encrypting files, go back to the Crypto page in the app and lock the Crypto Folder. pCloud hides the folder. Not only are your files now encrypted so only you can decrypt them, but the Crypto Folder itself remains invisible until you unlock it with you Crypto Pass.

Sharing folders and files

pCloud makes it really easy to share files or folders. Simply right-click the file or folder you want to share. You’ll see a menu of options that includes two sharing options.

  1. One lets you share links to the file or folder.
  2. The other pops up a dialog box with a range of options for sharing, including sharing to nearby devices using WiFi or Bluetooth.

When you share your files, the pCloud Fair share system comes into play. This ensures that only the person shared folders only use space from the person who owns them.

This is definitely a great way to share files, but there is one problem. You can’t use the pCloud sharing options with files protected by pCloud Crypto.

Additional pCloud features

pCloud offers a lot of additional features, but you can’t use most of them with files that are encrypted using pCloud Crypto. That being the case, I’ll only touch on them here:

  1. Link Branding – You can customize your download link with your own title image, headline, and description.
  2. Automatic uploads from your mobile device camera.
  3. Built-in video player.
  4. Built-in video streaming.
  5. Unlimited file size.
  6. Remote uploads of files by entering their URL.
  7. The ability to back up files from Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, OneDrive, and Google drive.

pCloud Support

The pCloud team provides telephone and email support in English, French, German, and Turkish. They answered the question I emailed them in less than an hour, which is excellent.

They also provide a large FAQ, which serves as the online help center. It covers hundreds of topics, with detailed instructions and explanations where appropriate. It is definitely a good starting point when you need help.

pCloud support

Now let’s move on to the next important question…

How secure and private is pCloud?

To a large extent, the amount of security and privacy you get with pCloud depends on how you use it.

pCloud security

pCloud uses strong encryption for sending your files to and from their servers. And their corporate practices for protecting your data on their servers comply with industry standards. But once again, there is a twist in the plot.

pCloud claims that their approach to encryption is unique. What exactly that means, I have not been able to determine. What I have been able to determine (thanks to that email I sent to the support team) is that pCloud is not open source. That means we have to take the company’s word for how secure their encryption is.

The encryption challenge the company ran a few years ago makes me more comfortable about the security of their encryption. However, it would be better to have a third-party security audit we could refer to.

pCloud privacy

To its credit, being based in Switzerland is a privacy plus. This country doesn’t require cloud storage services to retain data about their users, and generally has strong privacy laws. This attracts other privacy-focused businesses to Switzerland as well, such as ProtonMail. Meanwhile, some services prefer to really go offshore, such as with NordVPN in Panama.

But back to pCloud in Switzerland. Technically, it would be possible to read your files when they are stored on pCloud’s servers in response to a government order or at the hands of a nosy pCloud employee. Only the files you protect with the option (extra charge) pCloud Crypto system would be truly private. This also means that you cannot share encrypted files, since files you want to share cannot be protected this way.

All this is particularly worrisome if your files are stored on a pCloud server in the United States. There are rumors that pCloud now has servers in Europe too, although I haven’t seen anything concrete on this subject.

pCloud prices

pCloud offers a range of plans with multiple options. We’ll hit on each of them quickly.

pCloud Basic plan

The Basic plan is a free plan that gives you up to 10 GB of space. The amount of space you get depends on completing various activities such as verifying your email address or inviting friends to join the service. (We’ve seen this strategy before with some VPNs that offer a free trial and also other cloud storage services.) This account never expires, but if you need more space, or one of the optional additions to the service, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the paid plans.

Additionally, you can get a 14-day free trial of pCloud Crypto without upgrading. With the Basic plan you can track the most recent 15 days of revisions to your files, and restore previous versions.

pCloud Premium plans

There are two pCloud Premium plans:

  1. The Premium 500 GB plan offers 500 GB of space with 500 GB of download link traffic.
  2. There’s also the Premium Plus 2 TB plan with 2 TB of space with 2 TB download link traffic.

Both Premium plans include:

  • Fair share, where shared folders only use storage from the owner of the folder. This means that sharing a 1 GB file with three users only uses on GB of storage, not 1 GB of storage from each user.
  • Download link branding, which allows you to add your own title image, headline, and description to the links you share.
  • 30 days trash history, which allows you to restore older versions of the files in your account. You can also browse through your account to a specific date and time, then restore or download all of your unencrypted files or deleted shared content.

You can add pCloud Crypto or Extended File History (EFH) to these accounts for an additional charge.

Although it isn’t obvious at first, you can pay for a Premium plan monthly, yearly, or in one lifetime payment. The yearly and lifetime payment plans are displayed prominently on the site and have the best pricing.

Annual pricing

Here is what annual pricing looks like on the site as of the time of this review:

pcloud annual prices

That works out to the equivalent of $3.99 per month for the Premium 500 GB plan (paid annually), and $7.99 per month for the Premium Plus 2 TB plan (again, paid annually). These prices compare well against competitors like Sync.com and MEGA, who charge the same or more for comparable amounts of storage.

Lifetime pricing

If you could pay a one-time fee for secure cloud storage, would you do it? Your answer to that question probably depends on two factors:

  • How much does a lifetime of storage cost?
  • How likely is it that the provider (pCloud) will be around long enough to make this worthwhile?

pcloud lifetime plan

In the case of pCloud, each lifetime plan costs less than 4 times the equivalent yearly plan. Assuming you stayed with pCloud, and the company stayed in business, you would be ahead of the game in 4 years. This seems like a good bet. The company is small, but the service seems solid, and if they make it through the COVID-19 madness, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be around 4 years from now.

Other pCloud plans

Beyond the plans we’ve looked at so far, pCloud also offers pCloud for Family, and pCloud Business plans. Even a link to the mysterious monthly payment plans. All of these possibilities are found below the main plans, under the heading, “Looking for more?”

pCloud for Family

pCloud for Family is a lifetime, 2 TB plan. It supports up to four users and allows you to control how much storage each user has access to. Each user’s space is private. One thing that’s odd about pCloud for Family is that the pCloud Terms of Service state that no one under the age of 18 is allowed to use the service. This restriction seems to rule out using the family plan if any of your family are children. But that also assumes they are somehow enforcing this restriction.

pCloud Business

If you want to hook your entire staff together, pCloud Business might fill the bill. Each pCloud Business user gets 1 TB of storage, and pCloud Crypto as part of the price. This plan supports many of the business features you will want, such as creating teams with group permissions, individualized access levels, shared folders, and activity monitoring. You can check it out here.

pCloud review conclusion

pCloud is an interesting hybrid system, and it may be the perfect cloud storage solution for your needs.

For features like sharing media or streaming videos, they provide a system that is secure against external threats, but potentially accessible to company employees. For true end-to-end security, you need to pay for the optional pCloud Crypto feature, store the files you want to be secure in a special folder, and accept that features like sharing media or streaming videos are simply not possible.

pCloud looks like a great service for content providers to preserve and distribute their products. But from my perspective as a security-first guy, there are too many ways you can go wrong with pCloud. Their software is closed source and their normal security model depends on the company controlling your encryption, not you. You can get better security for your data, but at extra monetary cost and only by giving up features like file sharing for that more secure data.

Is pCloud right for you?

If you are looking for secure cloud storage with complete control, you may want to consider alternatives. They do have the optional pCloud Crypto feature to secure data stored in the Crypto folder. But outside of this, the security of your data is in the hands of pCloud, not you. Given the range of end-to-end protected and completely zero knowledge cloud storage options available, you have other options to consider.

Other cloud storage reviews from Restore Privacy:

  • MEGA cloud storage review
  • Sync.com review
  • Tresorit review
  • SpiderOak review
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Heinrich Long

About Heinrich Long

Heinrich was born in a small town in the Midwest (USA) before setting sail for offshore destinations. Although he long chafed at the global loss of digital privacy, after Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, Heinrich realized it was long past time to join the fight. Heinrich enjoys traveling the world, while also keeping his location secret and digital tracks covered.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Avatarforecaster

    February 20, 2021

    Thank you Sven and Heinrich. I recently purchased a pCloud Lifetime and then came across these comments – i could have considered Koofr otherwise. First i have been using the free 10GB account for some time didn’t have any issues so far – but some of these comments have made me wary – i will back-up everything in it for sure regularly.

    Regarding pCloud crypto – I have been trying to evaluate if i should purchase it – but i am coming to the conclusion not to. I think the interface is clean – but in terms of functionality all i see as a user is lock/unlock – i have no way of knowing if this just hides files on my laptop or does it actually encrypt on client side and send files to server. With no way of validating that our files show up encrypted on the server we have to take the provider’s claims at face value.

    I use cryptomator – unfortunately the WebDAV doesn’t seem to work when we store data in EU – so unfortunately at this point if i don’t use pCloud crypto, i can use cryptomator on desktop but cannot access it via my iOS devices.

    Koofr seems to support WebDAV i will create a free account to test it as well, but knowing what i know now about my use case- ( use cryptomator with a cloud storage service) – pCloud is still not there yet for users storing data in EU. Even for users with data in USA – within cryptomator forums there are many concerns around how slow the WebDAV option is with pCloud.

    Thanks for a great review here – much appreciated.

    Reply
    • AvatarLoki

      March 28, 2021

      Cryptomator works perfectly with Koofr. Koofr can even sync your password managers, it’s very flexible, you can do almost anything. The support guys are always there to take you through any configs you might want to do. Shouldn’t have even considered Pcloud. Koofr outdoes them by miles.

      Koofr may be younger, but the devs are always at work, releasing new features every few months. They’ll be THE best any day now

      Reply
  2. Avatarftr

    January 30, 2021

    Nice post, Sven. Can you also review Koofr, EU-based cloud storage? It packed with features that no other cloud have. I’ve been using for a month, and very satisfied with it.

    Reply
  3. AvatarBrian

    December 23, 2020

    In the last couple of weeks I’ve had two files “duplicate” themselves. The duplicates restore themselves immediately if deleted by the user. They only appear in the PC app, and are invisible if accessed through the browser. Said files also tend to have data loss issues, I lost pretty much everything I did yesterday.

    The mobile page and app also offer very little in regards to functionality. You can neither edit files through them, nor do most mobile apps recognize pCloud as an option to save or get files from.

    The pCloud service is cheaper on paper, yes this is true. But they are also “cheaper” in quality.

    Reply
  4. AvatarConsumer

    December 7, 2020

    My experience with pCloud has been nothing other than horrifying and negative. I normally leave positive reviews or none at all, But This is the worst service, worst I have ever come across.
    pCloud states that they will provide a refund if you are unsatisfied with the trial, but this is not the case. There is no way to cancel, the one representative they have corresponding with you is robotic and disregards your request to cancel and receive a full refund. The service is not at all what was expected, it does not meet my needs as represented in their service description. pCloud representative responds with “Sorry we cannot refund” Basically they don’t care about consumer needs and will be keeping my money anyways.
    This is a disappointing business practice from a company that will be storing your private files and photos. If they are not willing to provide a refund for something that doesn’t meet a consumer need, why would you trust them to keep your files secure and safe? I would never recommend pCloud to anyone. I don’t trust the site nor the app. It is uneasy to leave confidential documents on a site that doesn’t even stand behind their product. There are far better options from companies that also provide better consumer services. I had high hopes but was instead disappointed, I have lost money to this site and no service. Buyers BEWARE. There is no such thing as free here, you lose your data or your money, either way you are not in control of your own files.

    Reply
    • AvatarJimmy

      February 13, 2021

      Try Koofr. I bought their lifetime subscription and I’m not regretting it. I also took a trial from Pcloud before deciding to eventually go with Koofr. They’re very transparent, safe and offer so many features (with many more on the way) since they’re relatively new in the market

      Reply
  5. AvatarPurgh

    December 3, 2020

    Of all the things said about pCloud, people don’t realise this is a company no one knows anything about. No CEO, no investing group, absolutely nothing about them is known. Their customer representatives use English names but their writing style gives away they are not natives.

    The fact that they are based in Switzerland has no effect on safeguarding anyone’s privacy when the data stored in the US. If the hard drives are physically located in the US, any US Governmental organisation can and will enforce access to them via whoever has the keys to the building storing those servers. The “Swiss” element is pure gimmick and marketing lure.

    The main issue with pCloud, on top of potentially being a foreign company or even a governmental honeytrap using an office in Switzerland as a lure, is that they are not trustworthy with regards to the limitations of their services, using of very imprecise language to advertise compatibility.

    If you work across several systems (including NAS) and depend on third-parties to synchronise data across them, you will be very limited both by their own software and the third-parties interacting with cloud storage vendors. This almost killed Box in the past and was the main reason people preferred DropBox. In terms of third-party compatibility, pCloud is much less compatible than Box ever was.

    Reply
  6. AvatarJennifer Falk

    November 29, 2020

    Unfortunately I bought a lifetime membership. For about a year it was great. I could access my files easily and quickly and they didn’t take up space on my local disk. An external drive without the hassles. However, the idea is that I can access the data. A couple of days ago the drive was quirky and wouldn’t stay open. My files were still there but I couldn’t get to them. I contacted pCloud. They told me to upgrade to the new version. I did. And then 90% OF MY FILES DISAPPEARED. Really. I searched every last corner. pCloud has not said anything helpful. pCloud noted that I have a number of files in the trash but which aren’t accessible anymore. I knew this. I don’t throw out a lot, but I’m aware of what’s in their trash, and it’s a sad thing that that trash is still showing up while my files are not. That bit about trash is all pCloud had to say. I did have a backup on Backblaze that saved about 80% of what I lost. But that 20% is several months work. I’m still in disbelief. I guess I will have an empty drive for the rest of my life because I won’t be putting a Word doc with 5 words back into pCloud. On top this, this is the busiest time of the year for my growing business and this has loaded on a massive amount of extra work to catch up. In fact, there’s no way I will be able to replace the work in time for it to be relevant. I have time machine, but it doesn’t cover pCloud. My fault to not have another form of backup. Naively I was working with pCloud. My advice is do not go with pCloud.

    Reply
  7. AvatarDon S.

    August 29, 2020

    Thanks for the good review and all of the comments that helped me make my decision. I think for now I will stay with Citrix share file.
    I did very much like the p cloud feature in their virtual drive – that you had you log in each time you turned on the computer. Using different laptops it is a nice feature to have and not have your files exposed on each laptop. That is a feature I’m looking for and few have mastered the complete package…

    Reply
  8. AvatarTrevor R

    June 29, 2020

    Great review of pCloud (and other cloud storage services too)! For me personally pCloud looks to be the best option, and going to sign-up today I see an option to choose my data storage location of either United States or Europe. So this one major drawback for some people looks to be gone and your review probably could be updated?

    Reply
    • Sven TaylorSven Taylor

      June 29, 2020

      Yep, we update reviews periodically and will get this changed with the next version.

      Reply
    • Avatartruth

      July 4, 2020

      This doesn’t change anything. the cloud act means that the US still has jurisdiction over the data, even if it is in the EU. As long as the company is based in the US the US has jurisdiction and it can force pcloud to hand over the data.

      Reply
      • AvatarTrevor R

        July 7, 2020

        The truth (pun intended) is they are based in Switzerland, so yes it does in fact change the situation I would think. But I’ll leave that up to the reviewers to later clarify.

        @Sven, thanks for the follow up — good to know you will update your review should you see fit.

        Reply
  9. AvatarDiego Achio

    April 13, 2020

    If you are thinking about purchasing pCloud, read this first, it’s long but you’ll thank me. I purchased pCloud’s lifetime license + free Crypto folder after reading all positive articles about it available online, thinking it was a great deal. They run permanent offers giving you more storage than other companies plus free Crypto folder for 99 years, usually for a single $300-$400 USD payment. They advertise themselves as the most secure cloud storage service out there, they have this pCloud drive you install in your PC and they advertise it as a “desktop application that creates a secure virtual drive on your computer, which you can use to easily store, access and work with your files in the cloud” and of course, their Crypto Folder which provides the “highest level of file protection in the cloud” and they say it is “as easy as placing a file in a folder” and that “You can choose whether you want your whole profile encrypted or only a part of it.”

    All of that sounds pretty cool and I gave up my Dropbox account and got pCloud because of it but here’s the truth behind all the advertisement: I did everything the way they told me, I installed the pCloud drive in my PC and laptop, I stored my most important files in my Crypto folder and I used everything as advertised and as intended. After the refund period was over (because they give you a refund period), I tried to open a cashflow I had been working on during the past 6 months but Excel said it was corrupted when I tried to open it.

    I got in touch with customer service and they were helpless, they just said “what’s in your crypto folder cannot be recovered and maybe it became corrupted because you did something wrong.” At the time I thought so too, “maybe I did something wrong, these things happen”, but something in me felt unsettled, so I went and copied everything in my Crypto folder into my computer’s HDD, a local backup and suddenly it became a nightmare, file after file, impossible to copy “There has been a writing error” it said. I lost 28 files in total, they were corrupted too and it took me 4 days to finish my local backup because the writing error of 1 file wouldn’t allow a full folder to be copied. Now I was sure it wasn’t my mistake, there were files there that I had for cold storing, sensitive files I basically never open I just sent them to my Crypto folder because it had the “highest level of file protection in the cloud” and I did it like they said, “as easy as placing a file in a folder.“

    I got in touch with customer service, I was enraged but I tried to be a good customer, I told them about the issue, and I asked them for a refund. I no longer trusted pCloud and I sure was not using it anymore for my important work files. My hopes were getting a refund, deleting my account, and going my way.

    Regardless of having screenshots and proof of their product corrupting my files, they adopted a position in which they made every possible effort to blame me, I kept counter-replying all their accusations like “maybe you edited the files in the cloud, that’s not secure” and “writing errors can happen, it’s not our fault”.

    I kept replying and trying to explain and I even got to beg them for a refund. I didn’t want to lose my important files forever PLUS my money. But their policy is not customer satisfaction, their policy is shielding themselves.

    In the end, I noticed the pattern they adopted against me, for a detailed email I sent, they replied something redundant and trying to make it my fault. In their last email, they replied “pCloud did not fail to provide you with its Business agreement anyhow so the refund request for something which you purchased for free during a promotion is not possible.”

    So, beware of pCloud. Their promotions look very attractive to the eye and the wallet but if you are thinking about purchasing it for storing important files such as work files, important family pictures or videos that cannot be recovered in case of corruption, I would better stick to other services. I’m not getting my refund nor my lost files, and I won’t be using their products anymore, let them keep my empty lifetime account for 99 years. I rather pay a subscription service elsewhere as long as I feel my important files are safe.

    Reply
    • AvatarKim

      October 11, 2020

      To me it sounds more like you have a corrupted harddrive.
      I have been using pCloud for a few years now including the crypto folder and not once have I encountered a corrupted file or even just a disconnected transfer. it is fast, seems secure and stores my files in Europe where it is well out of the way of the snooping eyes of USA.

      Reply
    • AvatarConsumer

      December 7, 2020

      Hey Diego Achio,
      This very same thing happened to me. I even asked for a refund within days of purchasing the “Lifetime service” they refused to give me a refund. I wrote a detailed review about it here, still waiting on the moderation. pCloud has no scruples, they only practice bad business. I have experienced everything you described here in your post. pCloud does not hold themselves responsible for anything that goes wrong on their site or App. They blame the consumer.

      Reply
  10. AvatarSAS

    April 4, 2020

    I’m a lifetime pcloud member and like it a lot for it’s auto backup of Dropbox, OneDrive, etc, and just generally backing of data or big files that I do not use that often. I also like it’s ability to upload something by just driving a URL (e.g. a video file) so one doesn’t have to download it to a computer. One drawback is that the search is limited. on the pcloud Drive on your computer, since it is only downloads the files as needed, you can only search filenames. In Windows file manager, it only works some of the time, but some third party utilities (e.g. Search Everything) can search the file names better. Searching content though is not possible, and not possible on the web interface. It may be available for business users. If I have backed up old content that I believe I may need to search, I end up duplicating it on OneDrive where searching contents is quite possible, or Dropbox, where at least I have some ability via Windows to search interior contents. A second area that I hope they enhance is the ability to backup Google Photos if one has limited Google Drive space. Right now, I have to initiate a Takeout within Google, download it, unzip it, and then reupload it to pcloud. While I could theoretically have Takeout place it into my Google Drive and pcloud get it from there, I don’t have enough Google Drive space.

    Reply
  11. AvatarVector Space

    April 1, 2020

    I think that it should be a good idea if you provide some additional information for the mobile devices app, particularly the one for Android. If you use the application Exodus Privacy, you would be able to verify that pCloud use quite a lot of unnecessary trackers, like Facebook and the derivatives, so the pCloud is not so much privacy orientated. In comparison, NextCloud, Tresorit, and SpiderOak do not use any trackers. As it is related to the permissions, I am not able to comment on them, because it very much depends on the functionality and related services.

    https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.pcloud.pcloud/latest/

    Also, the firm is incorporated in Switzerland, even though the office of pCloud is based in Eastern Europe.

    Reply
  12. AvatarNick

    March 31, 2020

    “pCloud Crypto is an optional component of pCloud that works on desktops and mobile devices (you can’t use it with the web interface).”

    Unless it’s changed, or I misunderstand, you very much can use it from the Web Interface… it’s the “Crypto Folder”. It is limited in that you can’t copy between files and crypto and vice versa, but you can upload/download crypto files.

    Reply
    • Sven TaylorSven Taylor

      March 31, 2020

      We’ll check this out, thanks Nick.
      Edit: We’ve updated the review.

      Reply

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