Disable Google Drive drive letter • Hacker News Board

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#51

Post by simion314 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

asvitkine wrote: post #50

simion314 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. For example on a small company we had one user that needed RTL support, this ment we create backend code to store his perferences, front end code to add UI for it and testing the feature. We implemented because for a small company each user is important where big companies or projects(Firefox,GNOME will force this minorities to go elsewhere)

Uhm, there are literally hundreds of millions of people in the world that use RTL languages. For mainstream, global software this is not a niche feature but a core requirement.

Sure, but as I said I was in a small company, 2 developers only that this was the first time we worked with RTL. The project was not targeting a global audience or a casual home user, it was something about helping with your job, only supports english... my point was that we did not answer with it is just 1 customer we can ignore them , we decided we can do the work, gain a new customer this week and maybe a few more in future , every one is important. If we code the things right we don't need to touch this code at each update.

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#52

Post by pityJuke » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

In terms of bugs, I'd like to add a particularly interesting one, where for some reason, the latest Google Drive can cause UWP Icons to disappear. Now, this is some odd interaction between Google Drive and Windows, but it is... strange [0].

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8jx5ym/google_dr...

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#53

Post by judge2020 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

pedro2 wrote: post #14

Google Backup & Sync is being replaced by Google Drive for Desktop, née Google [Drive] File Stream. Unlike Dropbox, where filenames are searchable by name on Everything, here that doesn't seem to happen -- at least the indexing takes more than 15 minutes with UI frozen. An interesting tidbit: Google Filestream allows mounting on a folder. Google Drive for Desktop doesn't support it yet. Another interesting tidbit: th…

I'm in the Drive for Desktop beta program and it combines the Backup & Sync functionality with Drive File stream, so you can sync 'My Drive' to any folder on your computer in addition to having a drive letter for file streaming. It also supports multi-account support. I've had some performance issues with it so it still needs work.

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#54

Post by tux3 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

kettleballroll wrote: post #40

nixass wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus, we're talking about Google here Exactly the point the referred poster was making. Google does nothing without monetization in mind

As opposed to which other company?

Mozilla?

They're not the paragon of virtue I want them to be, but it sure fucking ain't Google.

My point is that there are shades and degrees of bad behavior. It's a mistake to handwave every company as equally bad.

That feeling is how you normalize horribly immoral things.

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#55

Post by judge2020 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

paisawalla wrote: post #41

ljm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going with Occam's Razor, I think it's really just as simple as product/engineering not making this kind of feature a priority. Plus, we're talking about Google here, so this new desktop version was 99% likely to have been rebuilt as an MVP.

I think Occam's Razor, when it comes to Google's enterprise tools, suggests that nobody who is important to Google has complained about this. The understanding being that you can't get your voice heard unless you're a customer with 10,000+ seats.

You just have to be a workspace customer at all. I have ~80 seats and the feedback menu in the Drive for Desktop interface has gotten me direct replies from the product team, which has helped them collect the info they need to diagnose issues in the app.

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#56

Post by ethbr0 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

ljm wrote: post #26

robbedpeter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's lazy and greedy and arrogant. It's catering to the lowest common denominator, pushing users into a cycle of manipulation and constant change, preventing any nuanced use of software, forcing users to increased dependence on a walled garden. It's a dark pattern - don't let people use the software in unexpected ways that might take potential profit away from another service or future feature. If any use gives more…

Going with Occam's Razor, I think it's really just as simple as product/engineering not making this kind of feature a priority. Plus, we're talking about Google here, so this new desktop version was 99% likely to have been rebuilt as an MVP.

Google does have a history of specifically avoiding exposing settings to users.

See: some of the Chrome feature requests about making things user-configurable (off memory, related to download / execute behavior for enterprise web-launched apps), which Google closed with "Adding a setting would be incompatible with Chrome's design goals"

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#57

Post by Kaze404 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

blitzar wrote: post #34

LightG wrote: post #32

Reason 421 to ditch Google. They have a couple of things I find handy, but wouldn't trust them with my data if they paid for it (and they don't). It's not that I inherently don't trust them with privacy (though why should I?), it's the constant bullsh!t and bait and switch. And even that, I tried to pay them for something the other day (I felt I had to while I considered other options), for the pleasure of paying the…

Funnily enough I trust them to keep my data safe more than pretty much any provider. Safe from everyone except themselves (google) of course, but then I litterally cant think of any provider/person I trust to not read stuff I put on their computer.

I don't. Just a few hours ago I noticed I started getting a bunch of guitar-related ads (like courses) after searching last night for a list of all the existing Guitar Hero guitars.

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#58

Post by smoldesu » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

If you have a server and like provisioning stuff, do yourself a favor and make a Nextcloud. You can run it off pretty much any hardware made in the past 10 years, and you straight-up don't need to deal with asinine workarounds like this. It's just like the old days, you and a WebDAV folder, as God intended.

If you can't set up a server but still want a good sync solution, use Syncthing. It's a decentralized solution that doesn't require a main server, and lets you create incredibly intricate sync solutions.

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#59

Post by paisawalla » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #55

paisawalla wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Occam's Razor, when it comes to Google's enterprise tools, suggests that nobody who is important to Google has complained about this. The understanding being that you can't get your voice heard unless you're a customer with 10,000+ seats.

You just have to be a workspace customer at all. I have ~80 seats and the feedback menu in the Drive for Desktop interface has gotten me direct replies from the product team, which has helped them collect the info they need to diagnose issues in the app.

Have you found that feature requests (not issue reports) were also received in the same manner?

Re: Disable Google Drive drive letter

#60

Post by tyingq » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

deepsun wrote: post #46

sumedh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google Backup & Sync is being replaced by Google Drive for Desktop Why does Google have this bad habit of changing product names, they do it with Chat as well.

Promotions.

I see you're being downvoted, but I do wonder to what degree that might be true. Working on a team that maintains something old isn't terribly glorious. Rename the product, and now you have a "product launch" on your resume.