Gadgetell Review: SugarSync. Leaving the laptop at home

Developer: Sharpcast
Price: $2.49 per month to $24.99 per month for 10GB to 250GB of storage
Availability: Out now
Pros: All your info, everywhere you need it.
Cons: I’ll be dragged kicking and screaming to pay for it; coming to terms with your online security fears
Overall: This service is good. The system is dialed, works flawlessly. Makes working on a desktop, laptop and mobile device a heck of a lot easier.

Right on the edge. The edge of being overwhelmingly excited and scared of how far reaching this change can be for me, personally. SugarSync is making this leap possible. What leap is that? Why, its the one that means I don’t need to lug around my 30lbs laptop to customer visits. And for me, that is huge.

SugarSync is an online storage/sync/web viewer of your files. That is a basic concept and SugarSync takes it a bit further. More than backup, online access, and my favorite: mobile phone access. Right now, I’ve got 3 machines sync’d to the cloud and that gives me access from one machine to files in all of them. That is power: access your stuff from anywhere.

I’ve got work stuff backed up and available, photos and my entire iTunes library. SugarSync gives you some cool options on what is sync’d where, a lot of my files are just sync’d with the cloud, but accessible from any machine I choose; on any platform. Hot.

The iPhone App (available in the App Store) is pretty slick and works better for me than just going on the web to access the info. Over WiFi, accessing my files is quick and painless. Over an Edge connection, the same couldn’t be said. Could just be where I was at the time, but it was a long download.

Function

To start, I downloaded the desktop application. The application walks you through what you want sync’d (to web, to web and other computers, to other computers). You can get very specific, drilling down on which folders you want and which ones you don’t. The app was very well done.

You can access you files via the web by logging in. Doing so allows you to view them, download them or send them via email. Pretty handy. Otherwise, files sync’d between computers are instantly transferred. Sugarsync calls this push file sync; similar to push email.

To date, a number of sites have done reviews on the service and the consensus seems to be, we like it. A lot.

The elephant in the room: security.

How secure is secure? Here is my Q&A with Sugarsync engineers:
* I love the concept but am completely nervous about security here. How do you soothe this fear?

SugarSync is a modern application that is built with the latest and greatest security technologies throughout the system, such as secure communication between clients and servers over SSL, AES encrypted files, and a highly secure data center. In fact, you are much more secure syncing an important file with SugarSync than you are sending it over email (which can easily be intercepted by hackers) or copying files to a USB keychain (which can be lost or stolen, and accessed by anyone).

* A competitor of sorts (I’ve only briefly looked at their stuff) uses 428 bit encryption which is stronger (right?). Why are you using only 128?

They are likely using a different algorithm altogether, in which case there are other factors than the number of bits in comparing the strength of their encryption to ours. That being said, the NSA has deemed 128-bit AES encryption sufficient for classified government documents, so the differences between it and other algorithms is immaterial in practice. What is more important is the design of the system as a whole - using encryption in the right places, properly managing passwords, having proper datacenter security, etc. SugarSync was developed by a team with extensive experience building secure, carrier grade systems, and we feel confident with the security of our customers’ data.

* That conversation aside, SSL isn’t the weakest link in the chain, it leaving the SSL open while surfing or other things. What extra precautions is SugarSync taking to minimize hacking attempts?

All communication is through dedicated SSL connections, and there is no risk to leaving a connection open in the background. SSL is a rock-solid protocol that prevents a background connection from being hijacked or otherwise compromised.

* The download communicates at will? Is there a security risk there?

These “background” downloads only occur on computers that have the SugarSync manager running and on which the user has logged in, and as such does not pose a threat. If a user is on a public computer, such as at an Internet cafe, she would likely access her data through the secure personal website, and when she is finished no more data can be downloaded without logging in again.