Like hard drives, you get a better value per GB as you go up in size. (It would take three years and about eight months for the lifetime subscription to become a better value, so that's a substantial commitment.) The next step up is Premium Plus, which gets you 2TB for $95.88 a year, which works out to $7.99 a month, or a one-time payment of $350. Reasonably priced: pCloud Premium gets you 500GB for $47.88 a year, which works out to $3.99 a month, or you can take the plunge on a lifetime subscription for $175.

This is a welcome change from the norm, where plans are distinguished by the bells and whistles, rather than sheer capacity. This means that even the free 20GB account gets all the features of Premium Plus, which includes: every version you made of a file going back 30 days, unlimited file sizes and download speeds, automatic cross-platform syncing, a built-in media streamer, and the ability to upload something to your cloud by giving it the URL of the file that you want to add. Generous feature set for all users: pCloud plans are distinguished only by how much storage you get for your money. And Windows users get a system tray widget where you can adjust notifications, change your preferences, pause and resume your file transfers, and shut down the pCloud app. There's also a regular desktop app where you can manage your account and your sync folders, set transfer speed caps, and tweak how much space pCloud uses to cache files locally. And once a file is on P:, it gets synced to all other devices where you have pCloud installed. Since your P: drive is actually located in the cloud, putting a file there doesn't take up additional space on your PC. You can also right-click on pretty much any folder or file and get the option to add it to your cloud storage.

In the File Explorer, you'll see it as the P: drive, and you can click-and-drag files back and forth just like any hard drive or partition. ProsĮasy to use: pCloud for Windows adds a virtual storage device to your PC. pCloud, based in Switzerland and founded in 2013, offers a better alternative for people who want more selective access for their personal data. Unfortunately, they both get a copy of the encryption keys for your cloud storage account, which is pretty bad for privacy.

After all, both services are very convenient, and both companies are generally regarded as trustworthy and competent. If you're already on Google Drive or iCloud, you might wonder why anyone would bother with anything else.

P cloud free