Panic Drops Google Drive Access
Michael Buckley (Mastodon, Hacker News):
At some unknown point in the future, Google will revoke Transmit’s access to Google Drive. Sometime after that, we’ll be releasing updates to Transmit and Nova that remove the ability to create Google Drive connections.
[…]
In March, Transmit was re-approved for Google Drive access — but we were told we would now need to pass this check annually. At this point, we began to question whether this yearly process was worth it.
Between the weeks of waiting, submitting the required documentation and the process of scanning the code, it took a significant amount of time from our engineers. For example, Google provided a Docker image for running the scanner, but it didn’t work. We had to spend more than a week debugging and fixing it. And because the scanner found no problems, it didn’t result in any improvements to Transmit. No one benefitted from this process. Not Google, not Panic, and not our users.
[…]
Google completely removed the option for us to scan our own code. Instead, to keep access to Google Drive, we would now have to pay one of Google’s business partners to conduct the review. […] These ever-shifting requirements and expenses are finally catching up to third parties.
I have the feeling that Google Drive is going to be useless very soon. Most indie apps are going to stop supporting it.
Previously:
- iA Writer’s Google Drive Access
- Google Drive Blocks Unverified Apps
- Google Removing Support for “Less Secure Apps”
- Google Drive and Mac Metadata
4 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
We use Google Drive at work. Google's own macOS client is a pain in the butt: sometimes it just gets really confused. 100% CPU usage, but it doesn't do a thing, and is highly uncooperative. However, it comes with tons of free storage space with our Workspace subscription...
Didn't even know Transmit supported GDrive. Hope RClone will continue supporting it, because I'm looking at that tool for scripting support.
Are there any benefits to using the client vs accessing Drive through a browser?
I didn't even know there was a client.
@Kristoffer: Not if you are only using Google Docs/Sheets/Slides. If you are using it to store actual files, the client lets you sync like Dropbox.
All this security audit stuff — presumably Google doesn’t really care about this type of security… and I was wondering where this sudden tightening of security is coming from…
My guess is that it’s because Google wants to sell to corporate and government and needs to meet their security standards for GSuite (Google email, drive, docs, sheets, etc.)… so basically, all clients using their system also needs to be secure as well? (though now I wonder what vulnerabilities Google Drive has that they’re so worried about):
https://workspace.google.com/learn-more/security/security-whitepaper/page-5.html
