Security

• 1.Is it safe to store my files online?
• 2.What’s your relationship with Google? Is there anyway that GDocsDrive operates against Google’s policy?
• 3.When I install GDocsDrive and start it for the first time, it redirects me to Google’s account sign in page, instead of directly asking me for my email and password. Why?
• 4.Every time GDocsDrive starts, it automatically opens the main window without asking me to sign in. Does GDocsDrive store my credentials?

• 1.Is it safe to store my files online?

  Yes, and here’s why…

  • You can trust Google storage more than your hard disk.
  • GDocsDrive utilizes OAuth Login, and therefore does not know your email and password
  • GDocsDrive does not collect any information from your computer.
  • All network traffic is SSL encrypted.
  • You can control viewing and editing permissions for all your files through GDocsDrive.

  
  

  If you are still worried about account security, there is a technical way to verify our above statements: use any network monitor tool to check all the network packets sent from GDocsDrive, and you will find:

  • All network requests/responses are sent to/received from Google's service, no third party addresses are involved.
  • All communications are SSL encrypted, which means even if the packet is intercepted by (or intentionally sent to) another place, there is no way to decrypt it.

  
  

  For more information, please read "Security of GDocsDrive"

• 2.What’s your relationship with Google? Is there anyway that GDocsDrive operates against Google’s policy?

  We are just one of thousands of third party Google API developers.

  GDocsDrive is coded based on Google's public API: Google Documents List API. So, based on Google's policy, third party apps are not only allowed, but also encouraged by Google. Subsequently, you can find that GDocsDrive is listed on Google App marketplace.

  Here are two links for your reference:

  https://developers.google.com/google-apps/documents-list/

  http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/docs/developers-guide.html

• 3.When I install GDocsDrive and start it for the first time, it redirects me to Google’s account sign in page, instead of directly asking me for my email and password. Why?

  This is the recommended login method from Google for any third party product. You may experience some websites asking you to login using your Facebook, Twitter, or Google account without registration. This is called OAuth login (Wikipedia), which is still not commonly used on client apps yet. It is a much safer login standard, which can protect your credentials from being leaked to third parties.

• 4.Every time GDocsDrive starts, it automatically opens the main window without asking me to sign in. Does GDocsDrive store my credentials?

  No, GDocsDrive does not store any of your emails or passwords.

  The first time GDocsDrive starts, it will redirect you to the Google sign in web page and prompt you to input your credentials there. After successfully signing in, GDocsDrive receives two tokens (an access token and a refresh token) from Google. These tokens are only specific to GDocsDrive and changes each time you sign in, which means they are completely useless in any other place except GDocsDrive. GDocsDrive stores these tokens to get proper access to your Google Docs files.

  For a better understanding of OAuth, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth