is google drive secure enough to share files

In all cases, the link to the Google Drive file is something that looks like: (There's a third kind of sharing for enterprise Google deployments that restricts one-to-many file sharing to specific company domains.) A long string of gibberish that's meant to be hard to guess The upshot, however, is that anyone can access a file using the second type of link, and anyone can also resend that link to random other people whom the file owner may not know. It's up to the file owner to decide whether to post that link on a website or on social media to make it truly public, or to give the link to only a few people to keep it semi-private. The second type lets anyone with the link, or URL of the file, access the file whether or not they're signed into Google, or have a Google account at all. Those individuals will get an email telling them you've shared the file, and will get a link to that file that only they can use. The first type of file sharing works lets only those specific individuals with whom you've shared the file AND who are logged into their Google accounts see the file. We have to thank Ron Amadeo over at Ars Technica (opens in new tab) for this next part, because Google doesn't explain it well.īasically, Google Drive lets you share files two different ways: with specific Google Drive users whom you designate, and with anyone who has the link.

Why Google is applying this update to Google Drive You can go back and do this again to any file you'd like, or reapply the security update to files from which you had removed it, even after Sept. Once you've done this to all the files you need to, you're done. Click Remove in the box and move on to the next file. A dialogue box will pop up asking you to confirm your choice. Hover your mouse over each of those files and click the link stating 'Remove security update' that appears on the right.Ĥ. Go through the list (it can be sorted alphabetically, by creation date or by last-modification date) to pick out each file that you don't want the 'security update' applied to.ģ.

(It's probably best to do this on a desktop or laptop.) You'll see a long list of all your Google Drive files to which this 'security update' has been applied.Ģ.

If you have older shared files on your Google Drive that you're totally cool with anyone seeing, and would like anyone to be able to access in the future without having to bug you for permission, then you may want to remove the Google Drive security update for those specific files.ġ. How to roll back the Google Drive security update

Is google drive secure enough to share files