Improvements

It seems that Microsoft likes Reddit and its increasingly common rounds of questions and answers with users (AMA or 'Ask me anything'). The latest members of the company to submit to the questions of the active community have been the members of the SkyDrive team, who have taken the opportunity to comment on some of the latest improvements of the service and respond to certain concerns of users about their files.

Among the words of the SkyDrive team we did not find any great news or notable announcements, but we did find a good couple of clarifications about how the system works and the situation of our files once they are in the Microsoft cloud.Some of their answers are worth taking a look at.

Improvements and user requests

In the improvements section, the SkyDrive team has been able to verify how synchronization of shared folders in the desktop application is something of imperative necessity for many users. They claim to take it into account but at the moment they have not shared any specific information. A similar situation occurs with the option of directly sharing the url of a file from the desktop, although for now the current one that requires access to the service's website is still considered a better option.

In the multimedia section, it does not seem that we are going to have news in the near future. Although they acknowledge that among their internal projects two years ago they managed to develop an HTML5 music player that they did not make public then nor does it fit into their current plans.The same with the tagging of photos or the support for .cbr files, an issue not foreseen for now.

Of course, SkyDrive not only wants to serve as a place to store your files but also to view and manage them. With Windows 8.1, for example, you can now search for text on SkyDrive inside Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files and the team continues to work on more types of files, although they cannot specify when the option will be available for PDF files.

Regarding the capacity of the service, in Redmond they continue to review the possibility of increasing the plan of 100 GB of purchasable storage without They can specify when it will come true. The same goes for the 2GB limit per file, which they thought was enough when designing the system 7 years ago. And when it comes to large files, the SkyDrive team rules out the possibility of a pause option when uploading files from the desktop client, stating that to stop it, just change the network settings in Windows 8.1.

Terms of Service and Privacy

The conversation quickly turned to more legal topics, such as terms of service and their relationship to certain content such as nude images. According to him, Microsoft doesn't care about your private files but, of course, they maintain a zero-tolerance policy against child pornography and that's why they scan files uploaded to SkyDrive with PhotoDNA, their own technology that other companies are already using. Other content is of no concern to Microsoft unless something is publicly shared that could be considered offensive, in which case sharing will be disabled.

Another issue that the SkyDrive team had to deal with is the issue of privacy and surveillance by security agencies in certain countries.The PRISM scandal is too fresh, and there was the corresponding Question of whether the NSA has direct access to user data stored on SkyDrive The behind-the-service team has responded with a simple no, linking to the explanation on the subject given earlier by the Microsoft legal team.

The interesting thing about all this scandal involving major internet companies is that many users have begun to worry about where they keep their files. There was no shortage of questions at the AMA about the possibility of encrypting files on SkyDrive, since they are not encrypted for now, but that option doesn't seem to fall within His plans. Even so, for those who want to maximize their security, they do not hesitate to recommend VeraCrypt as a good solution.

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