Articles

At The Good Cloud, we've always made sure the data centre where our servers are housed is driven by renewable energy. We presumed this was the most we could do to ensure our GoodClouds aren't bad for the environment. However, our new friends at Leafcloud have shown us there are many more possibilities in regards to being sustainable.

While exploring viable options for our business backup services, we discovered Leafcloud. Their operations, like ours, are anchored in the Netherlands, within the guardrails of the GDPR.

Leafcloud takes sustainability to new heights. They do more than just efficiently manage the excess heat generated by their servers. Or, as Leafcloud co-founder David Kohnstamm puts it: "It is just a way of saying 'throwing away something valuable'"

This thermal energy is redirected to heat various facilities like nursing homes, swimming pools, and even large residential complexes. What’s more, housing their servers inside these facilities not only allows for the vast majority of the server heat to significantly reduce the building’s footprint, it - perhaps more importantly – also means not building wasteful/energy-guzzling new data centers.

With the rapid progress in AI technology, the energy consumption of servers worldwide is quickly reaching new peaks. Initiatives like Leafcloud's are much-needed to make sure that technological advancements don't come at the expense of our planet's well-being.

As more sophisticated and resource-demanding features are developed within Nextcloud and our GoodCloud environments, we are committed to maintaining sustainable practices. We see it as our responsibility to embrace technological growth in a way that doesn't compromise the health of our planet.

In this age of rapid digital transformation, it's vital that we recognize our proverbial 'clouds' have a physical, environmental footprint. And we must do all we can to minimize the impact. We might still be some years away from Kermit singing a new song but, happily, being green just got a little easier.

It is your data, not their dataset.

Whether you write, paint, sing, draw, design, calculate, report, present or play the theremin, it's very likely that you'll have files related to these pursuits, and these files are your property.

At The Good Cloud, such files are securely stored and available to you. But we don't use your files for anything else. Your work will never become part of any kind of model while stored with us. Which ensures that your work will not be easily recreated by a AI. This will protect you from copyright infringements by others. Such as some authors and journalists are now facing.

In recent times, the fine print of cloud services has begun to incorporate the potential use of your data in large language models and visual models. For instance, if you use Adobe Creative Cloud, you should check your settings. If you didn't opt out of the “content analysis,” you would have given them permission to use your work in their “techniques, such as machine learning.”

In December, Dropbox teamed up with OpenAI. They claim that data is shared only if users activate a specific feature and in such cases we can only trust that this means the same thing as we our selves envision.

The update to Google’s privacy policy in 2023 had a similar impact. They now reserve the right to scrape your data and behavior. While this might be limited to publicly available data, we again have to trust in the mutual understanding of what we mean by that. With Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI, your data may have very few safe havens. Even if we can trust in this mutual understanding, I urge you all to consider with whom you store your data. Maintain control of your ownership.

This is not to join the general outrage parade towards AI itself. Honestly, I consider the entire debate to be overly focused on a symptom rather than a cause. The rush to offer AI is driven by overwhelming financial incentives leading to erroneous shortcuts, and as with all new emerging tech, misuse is initially rampant.

Personally, I see a lot of potential in the correct methods of feeding a dataset or model, and the informed utilization of the resulting tools. That being said. Participation should be and should have been, opt in instead of opt out.

Within our service and the Nextcloud software we utilize, you will be finding more and more options that offer ways of integrating certain AI services such as ChatGPT or LocalAI. This will always remain opt in and would only result in the tool being available with in the service. It may help you correct that report you’re writing but it will never scan or use the poem you’ve stored.

And, crucially, you don’t just have to trust our word on that. You can always jump into the Nextcloud community and have a good look at the code: https://github.com/nextcloud

So, will we be offering AI as a service?

No, while we have initially considered it, we have decided not to offer a service like LocalAI hosted on our platform. We have not found a large language model that does not have a dubious origin story, nor have we found one that would not, on occasion, proclaim something dangerous or downright wrong. We will, how ever, be on hand to help you figure out how to connect what you would like to connect.

Take care of what you create. It’s precious.

Image: EasyDiffusion SD5

Text spelling: OnlyOffice autocorrect

Text copy editing: OpenAI’s chatGPT 4

Imagine this scenario: without a second thought, you upload an important report to the usual big tech cloud provider service we've all used at times. It's omnipresent and often pre-installed on your device—it's been your go-to service for sharing business files. But today, as you tap the upload button to send it to "the cloud," your eyes wander out of your office window. At the same moment you upload your report, a strong wind carries a little cloud in the sky away at a remarkable speed. Suddenly, you wonder about the journey your report is starting on.

The truth is, our clouds, and our data, are whisked away by the winds and end up hovering over distant countries with different laws and views on privacy. This casual relinquishing of control allows our data to be governed by other laws, other companies, and other values. Our data has been ensnared with convenient services and less pleasant actions, often without our conscious awareness.

Regardless of whether you approve of the laws and companies where your little report cloud now hovers, relinquishing control of our data in this way is inherently problematic. While we strive for clearer and updated privacy laws in Europe, those laws would fail to impact what is happening to your data if its cloud has been blown to the other side of the world. There are very clear differences in data privacy laws throughout the world, and your data might be kept, scanned, used, traded, sold, or even printed out and folded into origami, all without you ever knowing.

At TheGoodCloud, we keep your data in the Netherlands. It only ventures out on your own devices if you've synced it yourself. By default, it all stays in the Netherlands. Using our services, your little report cloud stays snugly above Amsterdam.

Resulting in benefits from laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is the most comprehensive data protection law globally, with a strong emphasis on user rights such as the right of access, right to rectification, right to be forgotten, and data portability. GDPR also mandates data processors to maintain higher standards of data security.

Then there's the Network and Information Security Directive (NISD): the first piece of EU-wide cybersecurity legislation. The NISD sets another layer of security requirements for businesses operating in critical sectors and digital service providers.

In contrast, some foreign laws include China’s cybersecurity law (CSL), which increases the government’s access to company data and creates uncertainty with ambiguous language, broad, and vague provisions. It requires the data of services offered by Chinese companies to be stored on servers within China, potentially exposing it to state surveillance.

The US, until recently, relied mostly on self-regulation and doesn’t have a comprehensive federal-level privacy law comparable to the GDPR. The CLOUD Act allows federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requested data stored on servers, regardless of whether the data is stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil. So even when a US-based company assures you that your data is securely stored in the EU, their company will still have to comply with US laws, potentially poking and prodding your poor little lost report cloud.

With TheGood.Cloud, data sovereignty isn't just an option—it's a guarantee. We are a Dutch company and host your files on our own servers in the Netherlands.

Ready to exercise more control over your business data? Discover the difference with TheGood.Cloud. Bring that little report cloud home!

The Good Cloud

Cloudy with a Chance of Perfect Privacy

Hello everyone!

Greetings from the heart of our vibrant community. The untold stories and unwavering support you never fail to render keep igniting our spirits. Today we're over the moon to share the infectious energy bubbling here. Our recent "Invent a Slogan" venture was a smashing success, with all of you brilliant minds stepping up to breathe life into our cause.

Navigating the ocean of creative entries we received was quite an adventure, to say the least. Moments were filled with hearty laughter, thoughtful pauses, awe and wonder at the sheer genius displayed. The variety and originality highlighted the many facets of our shared mission.

Our hats are off to Matteo, Luna, and Mike who presented standout slogans, capturing the essence of our ethos with charm and originality. The thought and consideration behind each entry have left an indelible mark, inspiring us to aim higher and dig deeper. 

After an animated session of brainstorming and fervent discussions, with more than a couple of friendly squabbles, we eventually, unanimously, landed on our new slogan - "Cloudy with a Chance of Perfect Privacy". It’s cheeky. It’s thought-provoking. It’s Us.

The cloud metaphor signifies the unpredictable and erratic nature of the Internet - a space often opaque and elusive. Yet, within this nebulous expanse, we are constantly on the lookout for that silver lining - a chance at perfect privacy. This notion drives us, fuels our passion to ensure every netizen can traverse the digital landscape confidently, assured of their privacy.

To honour this milestone, we are sending out a truly special T-shirt emblazoned with the winning slogan to its creative architect! Stay tuned for that joyous mail delivery. 

We are thrilled to announce that over the next few months, our new slogan will slowly pervade our website and service theming. It's not just a catchphrase; it's an affirmation of what we stand for - a world where privacy is not just a possibility, but an unwavering guarantee.

Once again, a heart-felt thank you to each one of you who joined in this revealing exercise of creativity and community spirit. Remember, even though the path forward may seem clouded, together, we can discover the chance of perfect privacy.

Exciting contests, engaging activities, and pleasing surprises are queued up for you in the coming times. So, stay tuned, stay engaged, and until next time, happy browsing!

We perform various changes and updates throughout the year and some changes might have some brief impact on the availability of our services. The new schedule for Q4 2023 and full year 2024 is available here:

https://thegood.cloud/en/articles#availability-and-maintenance

Hi All,

It's been quite some time since we introduced our individual subscriptions. The first article on this topic was published back in October 2019. However, our preparations for setting up our cloud environment began well over a year before that. This involved selecting the most suitable hosting platform, acquiring the necessary hardware, and configuring the systems, among other tasks. Our core philosophy was to prioritize offering quality subscriptions instead of engaging in a race to the bottom on pricing. This approach meant that our initial prices were somewhat higher compared to some competitors. We elaborated on our reasons for this in a previous blog post, which you can read here. We even issued a cautionary note regarding some providers on the Nextcloud forum. 

When we began, we were using Nextcloud server version 12. With the release of a new major version every 3-6 months, as indicated by the Maintenance and Release Schedule, we've since upgraded to a much more advanced version.

Throughout these versions, Nextcloud has introduced a plethora of features and improvements:

• AI Integration: The platform now harnesses the power of artificial intelligence, enhancing the digital workspace experience. Read more about this in their introduction of AI-powered digital workspaces.

• Talk Feature: Nextcloud Talk has not only been added but has also undergone significant expansions. It now offers voice messages, location sharing, and Outlook integration, as discussed in this blog post.

• Functionality & Performance: Many existing features have seen enhancements. There's the introduction of approval workflows, integrated knowledge management, decentralized group administration, and performance improvements, which are detailed in these articles: Nextcloud Hub 22 and Nextcloud Hub 21.

• Dashboard & Unified Search: The debut of a comprehensive dashboard, unified search, and integrated notifications has further streamlined user experience. Discover more about these in the Nextcloud Hub 20 release post.

These are just a few of the highlights from versions 21 to 27 as detailed on the Nextcloud blog. There's a wealth of other features and improvements in each version. For those who are interested in a detailed breakdown, the changelog offers a comprehensive view. To give you a sense of the scale, every major version introduces between 400 to 800 changes, while minor versions contain approximately 20 changes. Between versions 12 and 27, this totals to a staggering 8,000 changes.

As I reflect on the rapid developments in Nextcloud's features and improvements, I can't help but ponder their implications for us who are in the business of hosting such servers. The addition of novel features is undoubtedly thrilling for end-users, but it brings forth challenges for hosting companies like ours.

The increasing sophistication of Nextcloud means ever-evolving requirements. We've always endeavored to match the resources demanded by Nextcloud, yet we're witnessing that the current CPU requirements exceed our current provisions.

Moreover, while inflation in the Netherlands/Europe, our home base, has skyrocketed -rising to an astonishing 14.5% in September 2022- we remain wary of modifying our pricing. We've already positioned ourselves as a premium service, emphasizing quality over being the most affordable option. Also, our current pricing isn't so far off anymore compared to our existing competitors, so we think were on the right path balancing service/pricing.

Remarkably, since our inception, we've never increased our prices. Accounting for the average 2% annual inflation, we've effectively been reducing our rates year after year. By 2022 standards, we should have adjusted our pricing upwards by at least 10%. Yet, we are committing to not increasing the prices.

This decision, however, necessitates other adjustments on our end. Small instances, which are particularly resource-intensive, are becoming unsustainable for us. We've observed a significant number of these instances encountering CPU and memory shortages. Given that our smallest instance offerings were priced as affordably as possible, they now operate at a loss for us. Currently, this deficit is offset by customers opting for larger storage capacities and by our business clients. But without strategic changes, this compensation model may soon become untenable. It's also worth noting our commitment to offering a free plan, a service that's rapidly growing in popularity. Our latest statistics show a staggering 2,000 users registering for our free plan in just two weeks, with 754 of them actively using the service daily!

Upcoming Changes to Our Hosting Plans

As we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of hosting in a rapidly changing digital world, we're always looking for ways to ensure that our services provide you with the best possible experience. Here's what's in store:

Transition to a 100GB Minimum Plan: Starting from the 9th of november 2023, our base offering will be a 100GB plan. This enhancement will enable us to allocate more resources, significantly improving the foundational performance when compared to the current 10GB, 25GB, and 50GB plans. Once this change is implemented, existing users will have 42 days after their current subscription ends to either upgrade or choose an alternative hosting solution if the updated storage size doesn't align with their needs.

A Special Offer for New Users: We've always valued the ability for potential users to test our services without a significant upfront investment. The 10GB plan was an excellent opportunity for many to gauge our hosting quality and customer support. In preserving this sentiment, we're excited to offer the 100GB plan at the same price as the 10GB plan for the first six months. This ensures that newcomers can still "test drive" our service without any change in initial cost.

We genuinely hope that our community understands the necessity behind these changes. Our primary aim has always been to provide superior service, and these alterations align with that mission. However, if you have concerns or require clarifications, please don't hesitate to reach out via our contact form.

Sometimes, life hands you lemons. But here at Good Cloud, we took those lemons, squeezed them, and turned them into a ray of sunshine.

Following an intense game of rock-paper-scissors and some heated debates over coffee (or maybe it was the other way around?), we've unveiled a crisp, fresh redesign for our hosted Good Cloud environments. Brace yourselves - new upgrades are blowing in with the wind.

A few years ago, our fashion-forward (or so we thought) decision led us to cloak our interface in a sunny yellow. The idea was as brilliant as the shade itself. But, as with many fads from yesteryears, we soon realised that working with yellow wasn't as sunshine and rainbows as it first appeared. Merge it with certain whites, and poof! Some UI elements just went into stealth mode.

Now, about that cloud photo we initially had as a backdrop – it was beautiful but had the heft of a sumo wrestler. It began slowing down our login page's loading time. And while patience is a virtue, waiting for a page to load in 2023? Not so much.

A shift to a lightweight vector image seemed promising. But when our login screen made a cameo on a TV during a presentation, let's just say we wanted to change the channel. Sure, the TV had the calibration accuracy of a broken compass, but it spurred us to put on our thinking caps.

Introducing, our new backdrop! 

Hold onto your hats, because here's where things get...spooky. Blame my inner colourful goth, but I whipped up an alternate, slightly mad version – just because.

Although this won't make the official cut (for reasons that are probably obvious), we couldn't resist sharing it.

Wallpapers!

Feast your eyes on these downloadable, high resolution wallpaper designs, courtesy of yours truly at Good Cloud.

Download Wallpapers

We're constantly amazed by the brilliantly quirky designs adopted by companies we cater to. From playful unicorns to expansive animated images of the moon in high-resolution rotation — yes, they might make the login page dawdle a bit, but they're undeniably mesmerising! This very spectacle underscores why, until our forthcoming upgrade, we've been cautious about letting our individual customers customise their theming. It's all too simple to get a tad overenthusiastic, leading to unintended functionality hiccups.

Our next quest? Rethinking our slogan. Don't get us wrong - we're as committed as ever to our principle: when you're our customer, you're not our moneymaking merchandise. No reselling your info, no shadowy deals. Because, let's be honest, using users? It's a mad world out there. But while "You are not the product!" will forever wave from our banners and echo in our chants, we're pondering some fresh taglines. 

Slogan contest: Exclusive T-Shirt Up for Grabs

Do you have a knack for catchy phrases? Here's your chance to showcase your talent and win a unique, not-yet-released t-shirt.

We're on the hunt for creative slogans that encapsulate our cloud services. To get your creative juices flowing, consider these concepts we've been pondering:

- "The Fluffy Fortress of Data Protection."
- "The Sunny Side of Cloud Storage."
- "In Cloud We Trust: SSL Secured & Nerd Approved."
- "Cloudy with a Chance of Perfect Privacy."
- "In a World of Open Tabs, We're Your Ctrl+S."
- "Binary and Open: Where Clouds Commune with Code."

Believe you can craft a slogan that stands out? We'd love to see it. The best entry will be rewarded with our exclusive t-shirt. Good luck!

Greetings dear readers,

As a professional techy weirdo, I must say that running hundreds of servers inside a Kubernetes cluster can be quite the hassle when it comes to upgrades. And let's not forget the diverse range of servers, from large enterprise-sized ones to diminutive two-dudes sharing their banjo playing, that each require individual attention.

To mitigate any potential issues, we tend to upgrade during the night in batches for our consumer-sized environments. This usually goes off without a hitch, but as with all things tech-related, sometimes you encounter unexpected problems. If a Kubernetes node goes down or any other infrastructure issues arise, the upgrade script will halt after completing the current task. However, while this approach works fine, I failed to consider degraded performance that could slow down the upgrades to a crawl resulting in some of our consumers being faced with a unavailable environment when their server is still under maintenance mode for an extended period due to slow but steady upgrades.

To prevent such scenarios from occurring in the future, I implemented a time check function within the script. The script now checks the time before running each upgrade, and if it's outside the designated hours for upgrades, it'll hold off until the scheduled time arrives.

Our philosophy is to take things slow but steady when it comes to upgrades. We don't jump on the latest version immediately; instead, we wait until our infrastructure is running smoothly, the developers have put out a bunch of nice fixes for the server release and we're certain there aren't any major bugs in the release we're pushing into production. This is why we're generally behind in terms of versions. Nextcloud releases new versions every few months, and while this is great, they're not always immediately stable enough for production use. Hence, even for our consumers, we choose caution over haste.

We have received requests for a more rolling release schedule, which does sound like a lot of fun. However, implementing such a plan would require a considerable amount of work that we currently cannot handle from a support perspective. Even with a zero-support policy, we've learned through experience that we're inherently too nice to ignore user requests for help. As a result, we spend too many hours providing support to our free users when we've publicly stated that we wouldn't.

Our dedication to being good and helping out our users means we often spend too much time assisting them, even when their issues are specific to them. We're slowly getting used to reminding them that we can't offer extended support when it comes to general platform usage to our free tier users. As much as we'd like to, we don't have the resources to do so.

In conclusion, while a wild, rolling, beta testing upgrade track sounds like an exciting prospect, it's not something we can provide for the foreseeable future. Our focus remains on providing stable, reliable service to our customers. 

Tips and tricks on how to handle dyslexia using a Good Cloud environment.

Greetings! As I mentioned in my announcement of the new series of The Good Journal blog posts, I am dyslectic.  Now, let me start by saying that I don't have the worst case of dyslexia out there, but it still presents its fair share of challenges. That being said, I've come to learn that The Good Cloud/Nextcloud has some fantastic features that make managing information and reading less of a chore.

Back in my school days, the tools we had to deal with dyslexia were downright dreadful. Tinted glasses that gave me migraines, tests that were too big for the desk, and a pen that was supposed to read text out loud but nearly gave me a stutter - it was a bit of a nightmare. Lets look at some of the tools I've actually found helpful.

Tip # 1: The interface

As I sit here in my dimly lit study, pondering the mysteries of the digital world, a singular thought keeps nagging at me: why on earth are so many websites still clinging to the boring and uninspired white background? It's as though we took the humble A4 paper and simply transplanted it onto our computer screens without ever considering the possibilities.

Now, I'm no Luddite - far from it. I embrace technology wholeheartedly and love nothing more than exploring the endless array of applications and interfaces that our digital age has to offer. But I can't help feeling that we're missing a trick by sticking with this outdated design standard.

Think about it: how much energy could we collectively save if everything defaulted to dark mode? Not to mention the fact that a different coloured background can actually help your eyes to focus and reduce strain. It's a win-win situation!

Thankfully, there are some shining examples out there of interfaces that have embraced the potential of a darker colour scheme. Take Nextcloud, for example - this innovative platform offers users the option to switch to a darker background, making for a more comfortable and visually appealing experience.

But that is not all. You see, the default font in most applications is designed to be easy on the eyes - a calm and non-invasive presence that doesn't demand too much attention. But for individuals with dyslexia, this can sometimes be a hindrance rather than a help. Reading becomes an arduous task, requiring a great deal of concentration and mental gymnastics just to make sense of the words on the page.

But fear not, dear readers - there is hope yet! Nextcloud offers a solution in the form of the OpenDyslexic font. This font is specifically designed to aid individuals with dyslexia by making it easier to distinguish between letters and improve overall readability. And let me tell you, it has made all the difference!

No longer do I struggle to find my "oddly named folders" - with the OpenDyslexic font, everything is crystal clear. It's like a breath of fresh air for my brain, allowing me to focus on what really matters without getting bogged down in the minutiae of trying to decipher text.

Tip #2: Collabora 

One other helpful thing is the OpenDyslexic font added to the Collabora office suite. This does help a lot to see each letter. Now, I know what you're thinking - "A font? How can that possibly make a difference?" But trust me, my dear readers, this is no ordinary typeface. Designed with dyslexic readers in mind, the OpenDyslectic font makes it easier to distinguish between letters and improve overall readability. It's like a magic wand for your eyes, banishing those pesky jumbles of letters and replacing them with crisp, clear text.

But wait, there's more! Another tool in my arsenal is the highlight feature in Collabora office suite. By adding a pop of colour to my text and zooming a bit, I'm able to keep track of where I am and what I'm trying to say. 

https://opendyslexic.org/

Tip #3: Readaloud

You know that feeling when you're trawling through a weighty PDF, your eyes start to glaze over, and your brain feels like it's about to explode? Well, fear not my friends, for I have found a solution that is nothing short of genius.

Enter Read Aloud, an extension that will change the way you interact with PDFs forever. Yes, you heard me right, physically change the way you experience those pesky Portable Document Format files. And no, I'm not exaggerating when I say that these PDFs roar, because once you activate Read Aloud, they really do come to life.

Not only is this tool a godsend for those of us who struggle with dyslexia, but it also seamlessly integrates with your Good Cloud and browser. Simply open up your PDF in Nextcloud, click play, and let technology take care of the rest.

And let me tell you, as someone who's spent many a late night trying to decipher complex documents, this extension is an absolute lifesaver. The ability to customise the voice and speed means you can tailor the reading experience to suit your preferences.

So, whether you're a student drowning in research papers or a professional inundated with reports, Read Aloud is here to save the day. Trust me, your eyes (and sanity) will thank you for it.

https://readaloud.app/

Tip #4: Keep a eye on AI

I'm simply thrilled at the prospect of these new technological tools. As a former victim of the education system's heavy-handed approach to dyslexia, I'm eagerly anticipating the possibility that these innovations could help young children with dyslexia maintain their love for language, rather than being beaten down by the system as I was.

To be sure, Nextcloud's v26 server is already boasting some impressive AI integrations, and one can't help but wonder whether or not such technologies may soon provide invaluable assistance to the significant percentage of dyslexics in our midst.

It's certainly an exciting time to be alive, what with the potential for technology to make a real difference in people's lives, especially those who have traditionally been marginalised by society's inability to accommodate their unique challenges.

Here's hoping that this latest wave of innovation will bring about positive change for all those with dyslexia – and perhaps even spark a renewed appreciation for the richness and beauty of language itself!

For a example this is what openAI's chatGPT can already very easily accomplish. 

As a fellow linguistic warrior battling the scourge of dyslexia, I can empathise with the frustration of spelling words phonetically and still being foiled by that pesky spellchecker. But hark! The tide may be turning in our favour, for it seems that AI could hold the key to unlocking our full lexical potential.

Of course, as with any technological breakthrough, there are certain considerations to keep in mind. Namely, that utilising this kind of text processing does require sending your musings off to a separate server for analysis. Now, for those of us who enjoy penning whimsical blog posts or comedic documentation, the notion of our words being studied by an all-knowing machine may not be too bothersome. But when it comes to more personal writing, such as crafting intimate stories or delving into the depths of one's psyche, the idea of sharing one's innermost thoughts with an AI may give one pause.

Thankfully, there are options available for those who wish to maintain their privacy while still reaping the benefits of AI-powered text analysis. OpenAI, for instance, offers a paid version that allows users to avoid having their every keystroke used to teach the machine.

So take heart, dear friends, for the future of language is bright indeed. With the aid of OpenAI, Nextcloud, Collabora and The Good Cloud we may finally be able to conquer the red squiggly line once and for all – and emerge victorious as masters of the written word!

Greetings, dear readers! It is with utmost pleasure that I introduce to you our latest brainchild – a brand new series of blog posts that I have aptly christened "The Good Tricks"! (Oh yes, another blog series, you ask? Why not, I say!)

In this series of insightful posts, I shall endeavor to unravel the mysteries of The Good Cloud environments and its seemingly endless possibilities. From the most mundane of tasks to the most complex and intricate applications, we shall explore all the neat things one can do with this phenomenal platform.

Now, let me tell you a little about our clientele – a motley crew, if you will. We cater to everyone from renowned restaurant chefs to sound scape artists, global enterprises to a group of online Dungeons and Dragons players (yes, you read that right!). The beauty of The Good Cloud and Nextcloud servers lies in their versatility and ability to adapt to a wide array of purposes.

So, without further ado, let us dive into the fascinating world of the Good Cloud environment and discover some fun and creative ways to utilize this powerful tool. My hope is that this series will inspire you, dear readers, to think outside the box and unleash your imagination, so let's get started!

Today, I have a tale to share with you about my recent foray into the world of enterprise deployment and the surprises that come with it.

I must confess, I was feeling quite confident as I jumped right into deploying version 25.0.7 to our production environment. However, as with all things in life, it was not meant to be smooth sailing.

At first glance, all seemed well until I was met with the strangest warning during the integrity test. Some files didn't seem to pass the test. Now, normally this wouldn't be too alarming, as we do tend to patch and edit files from time to time. However, these files were on newly upgraded servers in a location that should not have been writable at all. You see, we deploy apps into a separate directory called "apps2," which is hosted on persistent storage, and we mark the "apps" directory as not writable. And yet, Nextcloud's own integrity test very clearly flagged these files as unknown and having failed their checks.

I had to quickly triple-check everything. There really shouldn't have been any unknown files there. But when I looked closely at the files, they turned out to be some translation files into a dialect I was completely unaware of. I had no user on these upgraded servers that had that language set, and it still shouldn't have been able to place those files there at all. So, I could not figure out what had created them.

It wasn't until later that I realized my mistake. Perhaps it was because I had just returned from vacation, but there wasn't some rogue process or invading nasty placing these files in the "apps" directory. Rather, the developers made a small error with adding these two translation files into this particular (enterprise) core app.

Now, while the sha256sum, gpg verification, and md5sum passed as expected on both my original and re-downloaded server files, I still got an indication that the integrity test had failed and some unexpected files had shown up. So, I reached out to the developers about it. If nothing else, just to give them a heads up.

At this point, I am pretty certain that it isn't such a big problem. But, as with all things related to enterprise deployment, one must always be cautious. I am inherently hesitant to run enterprise code in production environments that come up with these big fat red warnings of extra mysterious unknown files that failed an integrity test in a language I have never heard of before.

So there you have it, dear readers. My recent misadventure with rogue translation files in our enterprise deployment. Let this be a lesson to us all - never let your guard down when it comes to the world of enterprise deployment.

Today I have the pleasure of sharing my adventure with testing and building Nextcloud's latest releases, v25 and v26. (This was a couple of weeks ago now. I forgot to post this before heading off on a much needed vacation.) As always, the buzz surrounding the new features was palpable, and I couldn't resist jumping on the bandwagon to build some new Good Cloud server images based on php 8.1.

Now, before you get too excited about upgrading from v24 to v25, let me warn you that there were some changes to the theming app in v25 that forced me to rearrange some file locations for our own theming. So if you're hosting yourself, keep a close eye out for broken theming after the upgrade. The fix is simply redoing the theming in the settings.

As for v26, I must admit I got a little swept up in the excitement of the release and quickly upgraded some testing and demo environments to the new enterprise version of Nextcloud 26.0.1. Unfortunately, all photos disappeared from the new Photos app, which served as a stark reminder of why caution is sometimes necessary when jumping on the bandwagon. Thankfully, the Nextcloud developers provided us with some patches, and I was able to resolve the issue relatively quickly.

However, patching a server in our environment can be tricky since everything is containerized. As such, I had to pull the server files for the 26.0.1 enterprise release, run the patches on these files, and then rebuild the docker containers. This resulted in a pretty happy-looking environment, but before I would update more testing environments and proof-of-concept environments, I wanted to triple-check some more things.

It turns out that our Talk high-performance backend is currently incompatible with Nextcloud 26, which will block me from upgrading our business environments until we upgrade Talk. In the meantime, I rectified my upgrade scripts to run through the Nextcloud upgrades in a more stable manner. We had an issue with the extra database backups not completing properly because the MariaDB server container would, in some cases, be throttled or even killed by the kubelet process.

Now, some may view my diligence as overly cautious. After all, we make backups for all databases of all our environments every night. However, I just don't like running upgrades without ensuring there is a recent version of the database backup available. I changed some details on how we do these pre-upgrades backup, which significantly downsized the resource spikes we previously noticed when running a database backup.

All in all, Nextcloud has significantly expanded its intended use since it first forked from Owncloud to become a nice sync and share file server. It wouldn't surprise me if I could soon connect my microwave to it (as long as it's open-source and privacy-friendly, of course). Nevertheless, this expansion has had some impact on our environments to a point where we have to re-evaluate what resources could be offered within what price range.

My initial view on Nextcloud's 26 hub 4 release is complicated. I like the AI stuff, but as a visual artist and illustrator, I will have to review what AI models are used, whether anything is training AI models using the input received from these integrations, where the servers that are used for this are located, and if all of this remains GDPR compliant.

Finally, one thing that honestly bugs me about the new v26 server is the amount of rounded corners. It's everywhere! Luckily, there's even an app for that problem: the Unrounded Corners app.

Before you start searching your app store for this latest release, let me reassure you that it is not an app. Rather, it's the title of a series of small blog posts which will regale you with tales of the adventures we undergo as we ensure The Good Cloud remains good. We've been eager to share some of our experiences, insights, and tips with you, so it seemed like the perfect place to start.

The Good Cloud has been hosting Nextcloud environments since way back in 2016, when it was still called Owncloud. Back then, we had already jumped down the containerized Kubernetes rabbit hole - a novel form of hosting which Nextcloud was more than happy to support once they split from Owncloud. The complexity of our product, infrastructure, and company grew exponentially, making for some nutty moments along the way. But rest assured, our team has also grown, attracting some truly exceptional and dedicated individuals who continually expand their knowledge and skill sets on a daily basis, making our jobs all the more fascinating.

In terms of marketing, we've explored a myriad of approaches, but none quite matched our ethos, hence why we opted for The Good Journal blog posts. Here we hope to grant you insight into who we are, what we do, and how we strive to be good.

Lastly, I must confess, we're all Dutch, and I happen to have dyslexia, so please do forgive any unprompted spelling or language errors.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for further updates from The Good Cloud team!

More and more businesses are adopting digital technology at a breakneck pace, and while this creates new opportunities, it exposes them to new risks.

Many organizations have invested in digital transformation to modernize processes and meet the demands of an internet-centered economy. Technologies such as cloud computing, blockchain, and the internet of things (IoT) are becoming common fixtures in today's offices.

One technology that's often left out is email security.

People think of email as a relic from the early days of the internet, but it's still the most popular and trusted form of corporate communication. But, with one in every 99 emails containing a malicious threat, businesses must consider email security risks in their digital transformation strategy.

Even built-in security measures aren't enough. A 2019 report from cloud security firm Avanan revealed that 25% of phishing emails are able to bypass Office 365's email filters.

Here are a few email threats that could compromise your data security, and how to protect against them.

Phishing

Phishing is one of the most common ways to gain access to sensitive data. But what does it look like?

A sophisticated phishing email may look like any regular email, and it's created to look that way. It's designed to trick users into giving up personal information or access to the network, masquerading itself as a log-in email or a reply from a colleague. IT security research has revealed that nearly half of executives fall victim to phishing attacks.

The easiest way to counter phishing is to organize regular training workshops for anyone who has access to your network.

Trojans

Approximately 1 in 99 emails contain a malicious attachment such as a Trojan. They are activated when a user clicks a link or opens an attachment, but email clients with scripting features can inadvertently trigger the virus just by opening the message.

If you're unsure about the origin of an email, adjust your email client's settings to enforce plain text view when opening an email. It's also vital that you invest in email security software with firewalls and email filtering to flag threats before they arrive in the inbox.

Spoofing

There have been rising cases of cyber criminals hacking into real corporate accounts and emailing customers, pretending to be an employee of that organization. This is just one of many sophisticated email attacks cyber criminals have perfected in recent years.

Once the threat actor has access to the network, they may also gain access to sensitive data such as medical records, bank information, and personal details.

How to protect your emails

In the face of digital threats, safer communication has never been more important. Nextcloud makes it easier for teams, businesses, and organizations to communicate and collaborate, while Sendent ensures that the emails you send (and the data in them) are kept secure.

Sendent is an Outlook plug-in that helps you share files and folders and send emails safely and securely. It is connected to your private cloud instance on Nextcloud where your data is securely stored. With your data stored on Nextcloud and securely managed by The Good Cloud, Sendent completes the experience by offering secure email communication for users and enterprises.

Visit the Sendent website to know more.

We perform various changes and updates throughout the year. Some might have brief impact on the availability of our services. The new schedule for the remaining Q4 2022 and full year 2023 is available here:

https://thegood.cloud/nl/articles#availability-and-maintenance

Being a small company forces us to choose wisely where to put our effort. It also implies that we’re unable to give 24/7 support for individuals unlike we do, on request, for business subscriptions. As hosting is our core business, it’s obvious that maintaining our Network and Customers environments are vital and take up most of our resources. However, we do not want to sell subscriptions and leave you without service. Therefore we’ve chosen to adjust the type of support to the sort of customer you are.

What does this mean in real life? First of all it is important to narrow-down what we consider covered by support. For us the basic support definition goes by, issues you run into while working in our hosted cloud environments. Meaning, issues concerning specific functionality that normally works fine. These, and basic functional questions can be submitted to our support.

Even though we do think it’s fair to give no support to free users, we will try to help you within a reasonable time or at least point you in a helpful direction. However, the effort and time spent will have no priority. Free users that need help to get started we highly recommend joining Nextcloud' s very friendly and supportive Community https://help.nextcloud.com/.

Opening hours

You can reach our support on working days between 9:00h and 17:00h CET. In weekends and on holidays, we do not offer standby service, although we do monitor and provide breakdown service on a best effort basis.

Response time

Depending on the type of subscription, we’ve determined a maximum response time:

Contact

Please provide as much information as possible, as which user and when you experienced the issue (makes it easier to look for errors on our systems) with your service request. If possible do attach screen-prints of errors to your request.

Email support: help@thegood.cloud

Monitoring: https://uptime.thegood.cloud/

Communication in case of failures

In case of malfunction you can check our uptime monitoring page https://uptime.thegood.cloud/ This is also the main channel used for communication regarding malfunction. Check the "Announcements" on the monitoring page for updates and/or maintenance notifications, or subscribe using your email-address for receiving updates. How to do so, see our article.

We perform various changes and updates throughout the year and some might have some brief impact on the availability of our services. The new schedule for Q4 2021 and full year 2022 is available here:

https://thegood.cloud/nl/articles#availability-and-maintenance

As we were asked by the Nextcloud company to be one of the partners in offering free hosted Nextcloud, it took some discussion as this is opposed to the initial idea of having a clear and open business model. We wanted to be transparent about how we earn our money: You pay us, we offer you a service for it. We focus on privacy and on operating as a full-service provider. We maintain, support and update your service, that’s what you pay for.

Free hosting is offered by a lot of companies to earn money by scanning through your content for customized advertising. By offering a free hosting service, we would give up this clear and open business model. At the end we decided to offer a free hosting anyway to offer a privacy friendly free hosting service. We see it as our way of giving something back to the world, as well as a trial version for potential consumer or business users.

There are some distinct differences between our paid subscriptions and the free accounts:

1. Free accounts reside on a shared server, as a paid subscription gives you a server on your own.
2. Free accounts have limited storage to 2GB.
3. There’s limited access to usage of Nextcloud apps for the free accounts. For the individual packages (not the free accounts) you can send a request to our support team. There are some apps that allow too much access to our hosting environment, so that's why we won't allow you to install apps yourself. However, if you send a request to our support team, we check the apps for known issues and if there are no problems found, we can add the apps you would like.
4. A paid subscription offers you the option to add Collabora or OnlyOffice, which allows for 20 concurrent document edits at the same time. As this is a separate server, this is a paid option.
5. A paid subscription enables you to share files/folders without a mandatory password and expiry date. As a result of abuse, all shares made from free accounts need a password and expire after 1 week. This means you must reshare every week if necessary.
6. With a paid subscription you’re entitled to share your Nextcloud storage with 4 users. We only allow the creation of users in our business packages. But our support team can add a user to your instance, send a request by email (or use the contact form on our website).
7. With a paid subscription you can up- or downgrade your storage if needed. Our procedure is we calculate the difference in cost between the current and the desired subscription and adjust the end date of the current subscription to match the cost. You can send a request by email (or use the contact form on our website).

When we first started our sister company 360 ICT, we've always done things remotely. In the first 9 years we didn't even have an office. But we saw some downsides to that as we lost contact with each other. We did call/email, but these were all to the point conversations and we missed the "coffee machine talks". These were the talks about trivial things, family, concerns about politics but also work related. Especially the minor work things that weren't big enough to actually mention in a meeting were missed.
So we opened an office, first on Papendorp, Utrecht. We met up once a week and called it an "office day". This was quite an operation as we had people coming over from all over the (Dutch) country. We had this office for quite a while and saw the office day pretty busy as HRM/administration used this opportunity to also handle their things. So it was quite hectic, but in one day a week we had the general stuff handled. Later we moved to a smaller/cheaper/less fancy office since the office was mostly unused for 3 days a week.

Then Covid happened and we didn't go the office at all, as the government advised to work remotely if possible. We kept the office day, but virtual. So we started an Office day conference call at 08:30 and kept the meeting open while we did our work. This worked pretty nice actually. It also helped us with the issue that there was less overlap on working times. On the physical office day we had some people starting at 07:00 but also on 9:30, but this has completely gone on our virtual office day.
So after the office in Bunnik hadn't been used in 1,5 years, we decided to completely stop with this office. Therefore our contact details don't show an actual office address anymore. 

Our oldest environment (free01.thegood.cloud) is end of life and will be terminated in the upcoming months. If you are a user on this free01 environment and would like to keep using our service, we advise you to create a new account via https://nextcloud.com/signup/#the_good_cloud.

Your new created account will reside on our latest Free server (use02.thegood.cloud) and will work on a newer Nextcloud server version.
However, after creating the new account you still need to migrate your data to the new server. You can do so by using the Nextcloud desktop Sync client. Please see the link below how to migrate your files & folders.

https://thegood.cloud/en/articles#migrating-file-and-folders-using-the-nextcloud-desktop-client

Note: The migration of data is a one-off for all active free01 users. The new use02.thegood.cloud server will be updated according to our maintenance schedule.

We started the free hosting after Nextcloud started with the PPP program. Mostly to offer people an easy way to privacy friendly storage. We did this on the classic way by installing a server with Nextcloud. We are moving away from this server to our newer servers, which are easier to maintain and update. So we are asking you to signup to a new account (https://nextcloud.com/signup/#the_good_cloud) and move your data there. The server which you are using (free01.thegood.cloud) will be turned off on june 15th 2021 and deleted on augustus 15th (with all the data).

Data migration Nextcloud

This article describes all actions to move files from one instance to another. In this example we want to move data from the server with URL https://free01.thegood.cloud to the new server with URL https://use02.thegood.cloud

• Install the Nextcloud desktop client, you can find the latest version here: https://nextcloud.com/install/
• Open the download to start installation. Click Next

Click Next again(default settings are fine)

Click Install

Click Finish to finalise the install.

A: Choose log in

B: fill in the server URL of the files you want to move (e.g.: free01.thegood.cloud)

C: Click Next.

The webbrowser will open the logon screen. Click Log in and fill in your credentials for e.g. free01.thegood.cloud:

D: Click Grant Access

E: This message will apear:

F: Close the webbrowser. You’ll return to the installer.

In the next screen select "Synchronize everything from server" and make sure “Ask for confirmation before synchronising folders larger than 500MB” is unchecked. Click Connect

The desktop client will synchronise all data from the old server to the local laptop/PC. Depending on the amount of data this might take while.

Once synchronisation is completed the system tray in the bottom right corner of your screen will show the icon:

Adding your new account (e.g. use02.thegood.cloud)

To be able to move the data, you need both accounts connected to the desktop client. In the next steps we will connect the new account (e.g. use02.thegood.cloud).

Right click the icon    , choose "Open Main dialog" and click Add account.

Perform the previous steps A to F

Choose log in and use the new server URL, in the example: use02.thegood.cloud.

Note: Use the new server URL in step B

Click Next. Webbrower opens, logon using the credentials of the newly created account and choose Grant Access.

Uncheck “Ask for confirmation before synchronising folders larger than 500MB”. Click Connect. The data is synchronised to the local laptop/pc.

Once this is finished, open the file explorer:

Select all data from the folder Nextcloud (free01.thegood.cloud). Copy the data. Next, go to the folder Nextcloud 2 (use02.thegood.cloud) and paste the data. The desktop client will synchronise the data to the new instance.

Once this is finished you can check whether your data is complete by logging on to your new instance via the web browser.

If you no longer wish to use the desktop client and want your files only stored in the cloud, you can remove the desktop client after finishing the data migration. (Start>Settings>Apps) and remove the folders Nextcloud and Nextcloud 2 via the file explorer.

If you do wish to keep using the desktop client solely for the new instance after moving the data, you can open the Desktop client (right click the icon in the system tray, choose Settings). Select the old instance and choose Remove folder sync connection. Please note that if this is case, you need to delete the folder "Nextcloud" (if using the default settings in the installer) in the file explorer by hand, otherwise your "old" data will reside on your local PC/laptop as well.

I'm a long time fan of wikipedia. If I would go to Mars and could bring one thing, it would be a copy of wikipedia.org. Another site which I'm fond of is The Internet Archive, and especially it's subservice The Wayback Machine.

If you have never heard of them, I'll show you how Facebook (at the time aboutface) looked in 1998:

Along with the history of facebook on wikipedia.org

I've been a supporter/donator of those services personally, but I'm proud to say The Good Cloud is now a supporter of those most excellent site's too!

So if you pay for services from The Good Cloud, you will indirectly support those sites! Currently our donations aren't that big, but if The Good Cloud grows, so will our donations!

Public Spaces has the same concerns about privacy as we do. They are a Dutch initiative supported by a lot  of influencial Dutch companies who share the same values and goals as we do. Read their full manifesto for more information.

They invited me to talk during their upcoming conference which I gratefully accepted. There is an international part and a national part, and I will be available during the national part on thursday (CET). You can find more information at their website, register here and look at the timetable here.

We recently made some posts about our maintenance schedule and uptime statistics. Our uptime statistics also contain messages for (un)scheduled maintenance or unexpected downtime.

But what if you don't want to check yourself and just want to be notified? Well, you can just subscribe!

Want to know how? Go to our uptime dashboard and click on the green subscription button.

After clicking the green button it will request your emailaddress and you will get updates on everything we post concerning uptime and maintenance.

Ofcourse we won't use this for any other purpose and you can unsubscribe anytime.

We have multiple monitoring tools in our enviroment which can alert us if things go wrong. We use the opensource tools that are out there mostly.  But as we have a fully locally hosted network even our own monitoring can fail. Thats why we rely on external monitoring to monitor our own monitoring.. ;-)

It looks like this:

You can view it yourself at https://uptime.thegood.cloud. Some things to note:

• Our nightly maintenance according to our maintenance schedule is excluded. 
• app.nextcloud.com is the official nextcloud store and hosted by Nextcloud GmbH so we don't have any influence on the availability of that service. But as we rely on the store for deploying apps and we like to be notified if the appstore is down, it's included in our monitoring.

As you can see we have included only our free hosting and our website. Our business users have their own dashboard of the uptime of their services. For individual plans we are planning the same service if you buy a 500Gb plan or higher (as we have to pay for the service ourselves).

We have updated our maintenance schedule for 2021!

So now you know when we perform maintenance for the coming year and when to expect (small) interruptions. Read the whole article so you know what to expect. We also added an uptime counter so you can see how we are doing.

We perform various changes and updates throughout the year and some might have some brief impact on the availability of our services. See our schedule for exact dates. This might look like a lot but that is mostly because we have chosen to note every change, even the very small ones with which we are almost certain that it would not result in any downtime.

Network changes

Typically done three times a year and can result in a few minutes downtime and reloading of the web-interface. Depending on the possible impact this is scheduled during office hours or nightly hours CET.

Infrastructure and Hypervisors

This can result in a few hours downtime twice a year depending on what changes need to be applied.

Kubernetes and cluster component

On average between one and five periods of six minute downtime per individual Nextcloud server followed by a few minutes of all services being down.

Application upgrades

Application upgrades are for example Nextcloud, Collabora, Onlyoffice but also Kopano and the Talk High Speed Backend. Two or three short downtime periods of six minutes. Occurring once every 3 months.

OS upgrades

Automaticly scheduled maintenance that runs somewhere between 01:00 and 05:00 CET, which mainly consists of rebooting servers for OS upgrades. Your instance may be down for 6 minutes as it reschedules to a different server. Occurring twice a month.

Small changes

Could in theory result in very brief downtime if something does not go according to plan. (We know stating this in this way might not help the confidence in the availability of our service but these are the facts. Most service providers choose not to mention this we’ve explicitly chosen to be open about this.) We do monitor our infrastructure completely and if something unexpected does happen we know within seconds and solve the problem or reverse the change within minutes.

Insight through our monitoring

We have published the availability of a few of our services trough external monitoring, which should give you an idea of our uptime numbers. Here's an example of one of our demo environments:

Note the seven minute downtime? That was a Nextcloud upgrade. 

24/7 access to your files

Now even if our service goes down for a bit and you need guaranteed 24/7 access to your files you can ensure this by downloading the desktop or mobile client and syncing the files to your device. (on the mobile devices it’s the “Set as available offline” option.) After any maintenance or downtime normal service will resume and any changes you made to these files will be synced into your Good Cloud.

If you have any questions please reach out.

Note:

Upgrading consumer environments will be executed in batches. All affected main user accounts will receive a notification via Nextcloud (web browser and/or desktop client), the day before the upgrade.

Maintenance dates

Fourth quarter 2023

The prices we use are based on the costs plus a (small) margin so we can run a healthy business.

But most of our competitors just compete on price. We are a full service provider which means we have a good support record and take care of updating, bugs and app compatibility. Which takes more time then you would think. Our service has also been designed with Privacy in mind, which also means maintaining our own servers in a datacenter we trust (xs4all) and also shares our views on internet freedom. We choose to do so to have complete control over our infrastructure, although it might not be the most cost efficient approach. There are a lot of competitors who are just a front and offload the computing to a public cloud without any service.

The free version we are offering runs on the same platform and we think it's good to have a privacy-friendly alternative sync and share option for free. But we don't want to compete on price or amount of storage, but on the full service and privacy benefits. Although we don't officially offer any support on the free plan, we still answer most emails, especially when there are technical glitches only we can fix.

We have been selected as the preferred supplier of the BeNeLux by Nextcloud GmbH which is mainly based on the experiences our customers have. But this takes a great deal of time and effort which also means that we are not the cheapest out there. If you are looking for the cheapest option, then there are more suitable ones out there. That being said, I don't want to say anything bad about competitors you might want to check out the providers section on the Nextcloud forum before choosing a provider.

If you read this, you probably are interested in encrypting your data so only you are the only one that can access your data. However,  there are multiple ways to encrypt your data. We are using Nextcloud.com as open source software, so we are using their options.

The option Server Side encryption (SSE) is used to encrypt the files from the Nextcloud instance. However, as it is the server who is doing the encryption, the decryption keys are stored on the server. If that server is in your home, that is fine. But if you are using a hosting service, the keys are on the server that is located at your hoster. If it's an evil hoster, they can access your keys and decrypt your data. That's why we don't believe in this kind of encryption: it still requires you to trust the vendor. A lot of vendors advertise with this feature, but in our view it's only as much worth as you trust your provider.

End to End Encryption (E2EE) is probably what you want if you are interested into encrypting your data. E2EE can encrypt your data and only you can look at it on your device like a phone or laptop. It has some drawbacks, like the server (and the webinterface) can't read the files as it can't decrypt them. This is by design because only you have the encryption keys on your device. Also collaboration and sharing files is not possible anymore unless you give others your secret. However, if you have sensitive files like a picture of your driver's license, this is a perfect fit. It also does not require to trust your hosting provider.

However, E2EE is a troublesome child at the developers at Nextcloud. We pledged quite some money to get it developed in early 2018, offered development time, used our silver partner status to keep pressure on, but it took a long time to get ready. This was even made harder as Nextcloud GmbH used E2EE a lot in their marketing even though it was basicly unusable and the status of development very unclear. We were quite frustrated with the lack of development, as we think we really need E2EE for our users. The whole goal behind The Good Cloud is that we are a full service provider, which takes care of all the aspects of hosting Nextcloud in a privacy friendly way. But in the end, it comes down to trusting us to be the good guys. E2EE takes away that need to trust us, which makes our service a whole lot more privacy friendly!~

But away with all our frustration! E2EE looks to be production ready! We would like to thank Nextcloud and thank any of our users who made it clear to Nextcloud this was a wanted feature!

(following the link opens youtube as I can't embed the link. Embedding enables tracking and privacy badgers alerts)

Having said that, we do have some reservations with new features in Nextcloud as first versions seems to contain a lot of bugs (software errors). We always test new versions extensively on our own environments and keep up with all the features/bugs in releases on github, where the software is being developed. So I would suggest you wait a bit until we give the all-clear, which probably will around the time Nextcloud 21 releases.

If you don't want to wait, we recommend using https://cryptomator.org. You can encrypt parts/files/subfolders for which you think E2EE is needed. It's additional software which we have successfully used and trust. The big disadvantage it requires some technical skill and you would have to additionaly manage Cryptomator.

update 24 sept 2021: We are still watching github if we can recommend the feature yet. At the moment issues #247 and #245 concern us, especially the lack of progress on the project the last 6 months so we do recommend caution if you want to use e2ee.

Update November 23rd 2023:  We are ready to start E2E encryption for paid subscriptions. However, we do so with a disclaimer.

Please be aware that E2E encryption can only be applied to subfolders and that files within the encrypted folder cannot be shared with others (unless you share your E2E secret).  You can only edit documents in the encrypted folder on the computer syncing with the desktop client. Online editing or viewing of files in the encrypted folder is not possible. Please note that using E2E encryption leads to an increase of approx. 30% in your storage amount. If you are okay with these restrictions, we can enable E2E encryption on your environment.

While we are all working at home, here is a little tip for you Good Cloud users out there. It contains scanning documents with your mobile phone directly in your Good Cloud storage. There is no obvious documentation, so I decided to do a blog post about this functionality as lots of users don't know the functionality exists.

As you probably know we use Nextcloud as our hosting software, which includes the mobile client. The mobile app includes a nice scan function for documents that is accessible anytime, anywhere and incredibly easy to use. I'm using Apple, so I'm using the Nextcloud iOS mobile client to take the screenshot.

Apple!?

What do you say?

Yes, I'm still waiting for my Privacy-friendly phone to be delivered, but that's a different story. 

Open the Nextcloud app, click on the + and select "scan document":

Select "Scan document"

Then the camera will try to find a document to scan (you will have to allow camera access of course). You don't have to do anything except keeping your phone steady. If it doesn't succeed, you can take a pic manually. 

The angle may not be okay right now,

but it will be corrected automatically later. 

You can see it's at an odd angle, which is very annoying when scanning a document. If you have ever taken pictures from a document, you will have experienced this. But wait... It will magically rotate the document based on the corners of the earlier taken pic! You can even edit it or rotate the document!

After that, you have to select the pics you have taken and slide it down. This is a little non-intuitive, but it's meant for you to select multiple pictures and create one scanned document. Here you have some colour/grayscale/black&white options too. After that, you can select the location (select save path) and save it to your Good Cloud storage.

Overview of my scanned images

so I can start creating a document  

I'm using it mainly for my family administration, so I scan every document related to insurance, car papers or invoices. I notice I won't use the hard paper version at all anymore, laying on a stack labelled "to do". Every time I need a document, I go to my Good Cloud storage to select the document from there (and it's always with me). 

edit: There is even someone who used scanbot.io with the advantage that it can recognise text (called OCR), although I haven't tested it myself if it still works: https://medium.com/@mathiasconradt/

OCR is now integrated!

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this article, please let us know! 

The challenge?

To provide an easy and secure way for Netwerk Filmeducatie to share files within and outside the organization. 

Interview with Natasja Straat, Digital presentation Eye Filmmuseum

"For the Netwerk Filmeducatie, coordinated by Eye, we were looking for a cloud where documents can be shared with people outside our organisation. People had to be able to collaborate on these documents (simultaneously) and all data had to be secure in this environment. We also thought it was important that members of the network should be able to view shared documents without an account or having to log in. 

Employees who want to share documents quickly end up using Google Drive or Office 365. Because Eye already runs an Office 365 cloud, we first set up a SharePoint team site, but this did not result in an environment that met the wishes of the network (Office 365 is in our experience absolutely not user-friendly). We also have strong doubts about how Microsoft deals with user data. Google has a bad reputation in this area anyway, so Google Drive was dropped right away. And therefore we looked further." 

"User-friendliness & safety as key pillars"

The Solution?

Personalized Good Cloud business subscription with OnlyOffice component.

“I've been running Nextcloud on my own server for some time now and I really like it. I was confident that it would also be a suitable environment for the Netwerk Filmeducatie. 

For Netwerk Filmeducatie, however, we didn't want to take the management and control into our own hands. We took a closer look at various parties that offer Nextcloud as SaaS. Ultimately, The Good Cloud turned out to be an obvious party to work with because it is a provider recommended by Nextcloud. The company is based in the Netherlands and the data is stored in the Netherlands. But above all, we chose The Good Cloud because it respects the privacy of users and does not use the data for their own gain. 

The conversations with The Good Cloud were pleasant and went well and a suitable solution was found for our specific needs; for example, we wanted to work with the OnlyOffice package and not with Collabora. 

Within 2 weeks the cloud was up and running and it is still running satisfactorily.”

How does Netwerk Filmeducatie use The Good Cloud?

“The cloud is used by the Netwerk Filmeducatie of which Eye is the coordinator. The network consists of about 200 members, the majority of whom only read/watch and therefore do not need their own account. The number of users with an account will continue to grow, but I don't expect it to be more than 25.

So far we are mainly working on text files and spreadsheets that are shared with the network members. The Gallery App is used to view and share photos of events. In the future, The Calendar, Talk and Deck may also be used.

Nextcloud makes document sharing easy with partial links where you can specify different restrictions. A big advantage is that people with whom you share documents do not have to log in to view the document. Also sharing with other users and/or groups within the cloud or federated clouds is easy. The interface is simple, clear and effective. As far as we are concerned, OnlyOffice is the most accessible online editor, especially since it is difficult for most users to work with new software; OnlyOffice quickly gets used to Word users.

The Gallery app is ideal, very useful that you don't have to search your folders for photos and images but can find them quickly in the Gallery."
         

       

The Good Cloud is pleased that Netwerk Filmeducatie is a satisfied customer of our service. Do you think we can possibly help your business with a secure and user-friendly cloud environment? 

Don't hesitate to contact us. 

To enter a specific website or application you usually need a username and password. In many cases this will be enough to ensure safe data processing, especially when passwords are enforced with complexity requirements (i.e. uppercase and lowercase letters, alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric characters). However, in case there's critical data, or highly sensitive information involved you might want to add an extra layer of security. Two factor authentication (2FA) is a per user applicable extra level of security  in which the user needs an extra authentication tool.

Whenever you are signing in, you authenticate with a username and password. By applying two factor authentication you minimise the risk of illegal access. All you need is an authentication tool which can scan QR code and generate one-time passwords. Nowadays there are several authentication tools available on smartphones (i.e. and OTP for Android, or OTPAuth for iPhone).

2FA in The Good Cloud

In The Good Cloud each user can apply 2FA on its own account. Log in using your username and password and go to Settings > Security:

Check the box Enable TOTP.

Once checked a QR code appears. Scan the QR code with your authentication tool and enter the verification code. Always “generate backup codes” and keep them safe (i.e. Bitwarden). 

Next time you log in you'll be asked to enter username and password:

And secondly the code generated by your authentication tool:

That’s all.
If you have any questions about 2FA, or anything else, don’t hesitate to contact us.