More About Google Drive

Google Drive is just a new name for Google Docs, so you shouldn't expect a new service. What you can expect is a new software that synchronizes your files with Google Docs and more free storage.

Felipe Zorzo found an evidence (English translation) that Google Drive is also the name of a downloadable software. The clue is a new menu item titled "Download Google Drive" that's disabled by default. To enable it, Felipe opened Google Docs, then loaded Chrome's Developer Tools, switched to the Scripts tab and searched for cookieFetchElement. He clicked on the row number (365) to set a breakpoint, reloaded Google Docs, went back to the Developer Tools and pasted the following code in the console:

config.ed = true; config.ddu = '.';

After going back to the Scripts tab, he clicked the "pause" button (F8) and switched to the Google Docs tab.



At the moment, you can't download the Google Drive software, but it will be interesting to see if it's better than Dropbox.

{ Thanks, Rodrigo. }

Google Drive, a New Name for the Google Docs Homepage?

TechCrunch has recently reported that the subdomain drive.google.com has been added to a Chrome file and a Google Docs message includes a reference to Google Drive.



The source code of Google Docs files has many messages related to "Google Drive", but all of them have one thing in common: they replace similar messages that include "Documents List". Here are two examples: "items haved been removed from your Documents List" / "items haved been removed from your Google Drive", "Add to my Documents List" / "Add to My Google Drive".


This suggests that Google Drive could be the new name of the Google Docs List, while Google Docs could be detached from the file storage interface and only be an online office suite. Google Docs is not the right name for an online storage application that lets you upload not just documents, but also music, videos, archives, photos and other files. Hopefully, the rebranding will bring more free storage, file syncing apps for mobile and desktop and integration with third-party apps.

Steven Levy's "In the Plex" included an interesting story about Google Drive being superseded by Google Docs because "files are so 1990". Google's Sundar Pichai said that "when people use our Google Docs, there are no more files. You just start editing in the cloud, and there's never a file." Google Drive might be a better name for a service that stores user files, whether they're created using Web apps, mobile apps or desktop apps.

How Google Docs Killed GDrive

"In The Plex", Steven Levy's recently launched book about Google, has an interesting story about GDrive, an online storage service developed by Google. People first found about GDrive from a leaked Google document, back in 2006. GDrive (or Platypus) turned out to be a service used by Google employees that offered many impressive features: syncing files, viewing files on the Web, shared spaces for collaborating on a document, offline access, local IO speeds. But Google wanted to launch GDrive for everyone.

At the time [2008], Google was about to launch a project it had been developing for more than a year, a free cloud-based storage service called GDrive. But Sundar [Pichai] had concluded that it was an artifact of the style of computing that Google was about to usher out the door. He went to Bradley Horowitz, the executive in charge of the project, and said, "I don't think we need GDrive anymore." Horowitz asked why not. "Files are so 1990," said Pichai. "I don't think we need files anymore."

Horowitz was stunned. "Not need files anymore?"

"Think about it," said Pichai. "You just want to get information into the cloud. When people use our Google Docs, there are no more files. You just start editing in the cloud, and there's never a file."

When Pichai first proposed this concept to Google's top executives at a GPS—no files!—the reaction was, he says, "skeptical." [Linus] Upson had another characterization: "It was a withering assault." But eventually they won people over by a logical argument—that it could be done, that it was the cloudlike thing to do, that it was the Google thing to do. That was the end of GDrive: shuttered as a relic of antiquated thinking even before Google released it. The engineers working on it went to the Chrome team.

In 2009, Google Docs started to store PDF files and one year later you could store any type of file in Google Docs. The service still doesn't offer a way to sync files. Even if GDrive was never released, Google Docs inherits most of its features. The main difference is that you no longer have to worry about file formats because you can open and edit documents in Google Docs.

{ Thanks, Kristian. }

GDrive Is Coming

After many years of waiting, Google's online storage service will finally be available. It won't be called GDrive, as it will only be an updated version of Google Docs.

"Instead of emailing files to yourself, which is particularly difficult with large files, you can upload to Google Docs any file up to 250 MB. You'll have 1 GB of free storage for files you don't convert into one of the Google Docs formats (i.e. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentations), and if you need more space, you can buy additional storage for $0.25 per GB per year," mentions Google Docs blog.

The update will be slowly rolled out in the coming days and it's the next step in the evolution of Google's online office suite. When Google added support for PDF files in 2008, it became clear that Google Docs will let you upload any kind of file.


Google says that the service will be able to open many common file formats. "You can search for document files you've uploaded or that have been shared with you just like you do with your Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs. And you'll be able to view many common document file types with the Google Docs viewer."

Google Docs has the potential to become a great service for online storage, but it won't succeed if it only includes 1 GB of free storage. Microsoft's SkyDrive offers 25 GB of free storage, while ADrive offers 50 GB of free storage. Even Gmail has more free storage than Google Docs and its main purpose is not storing files.





{ Thanks, Myron and Norman. }