According to the latest reports, Windows 11 has made an independent choice by automatically turning on OneDrive folder backup for Desktop, Pictures, Documents, Music, and Video folders without your permission. This signifies that, whether you approve or not, everything is becoming coordinated with the cloud.

This action from Microsoft fits into a larger pattern where big tech companies cleverly (or not so cleverly) promote their services and subscriptions to users. It isn’t only about Microsoft; there have been instances of Google doing something similar with Google Photos and its storage plans.

Keep an eye on your settings, particularly when you have just finished setting up a new device or updating your operating system. Companies such as Microsoft constantly seek methods to link users with their environments—sometimes without permission.

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    If you are willing to self-host, I’ve found Nextcloud integrates well in Linux. I had been using it before I made the switch and it worked out just fine afterwards. I originally set it up to have a cloud-sync option for my phone, which didn’t mean passing everything through Google first. But, it also proved to be a handy way to sync files on my desktop as well.
    It just shows up as another folder on my system and Libre Office is happy to work on files from there (with some permissions fiddling due to flatpak).

    • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Yes, but I can’t get the virtual file system/on-demand sync to work properly. It turn off every time I reboot. I gave up after a while since it’s experimental for now anyway.

      • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That’s interesting. I’ve not had that sort of issue. On my phone (Android), my son’s laptop (Windows) and my desktop (Arch Linux) the NextCloud clients all sync perfectly and run at start up. Granted, knowing that the Linux landscape is fractured, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if the client had issues on some flavors of Linux.

          • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            My apologies, I was not familiar with the difference. I’m going to have to test this when I am back at my system. Looking at the docs, it does seem to be experimental in Linux. But it seems odd that it would turn off automagically.