Pcloud Online Storage is Invasive

As many of you know, I have used and even suggested the use of Pcloud Online Storage up until recently.
However, I have noticed some very glaring problems with Pcloud in recent times.
Pcloud is extremely hyped on marketing. While I certainly understand that Online Storage has Costs that must be covered, we must admit that we did not devise Pclouds marketing strategy.
During Holidays, I have had my phone getting alerts as much as Every Hour On The Hour from Pcloud advertising some (expensive) sale that they are offering. That is outrageous. I contacted Pcloud support over the issue, and their representative Claimed that the I.T. Dept. had made an Error on the Timing Set on the alerts.
Really...? Inept, are they?
Fine...
Pcloud sends a Lot of Advertising to your Email As well. While not as frequent as the hourly text alerts mentioned above, some may find it a bit annoying.

But most importantly, Pcloud continuously adds itself to Autostart on your computer. This is very invasive. I have an intense dislike for any software that takes charge of its actions, overriding User Controls.
According to Pcloud, you must go to settings, then uncheck autostart, Then Select Apply. I have done this. But, if I unlink and close out Pcloud, then open it again, the "autostart" feature is selected again.
I contacted Pcloud Customer Support over a week ago on this issue. The Rep, Sherry, asked if I would be willing to use a prepared Debug version to help them figure out why it was doing that, while assuring me that the consistent addition to autostart was not deliberate by Pcloud (The same company that texted me hourly pressuring sales and then claimed that was a total accident).
I agreed, and after a week of back and forth, I installed their debug version. I then set about testing whether it would add itself to autostart after I removed it from autostart.
I easily and IMMEDIATELY replicated the issue. I ensured that Pcloud had no objects in ~/.config/applications/autostart, then I opened Pcloud, went into the settings and ensured that it was unchecked, and hit apply.
I unlinked, closed Pcloud and then reopened it, and logged in, went to settings: Autostart Was Checked On. I took Many screenshots of the process, then referred this back to Sherry.
Sherry replied with a nonsense answer that "IF I could successfully replicate..." utterly ignoring the fact that I clearly stated that I had done so easily... That I was to send them a nonexistent Bug Report (Only matters IF the report found a generated Bug, which is not applicable) basically demonstrating that I was being given the "Impossible Runaround".

So, I am posting this as a PSA to all users.

Pcloud is demonstrably Invasive.
It is too heavy handed with poor marketing.
I will be contacting all people I directly recommend Pcloud to and eating my words, and shamefully suggesting they try SyncCloud instead as it has never engaged in any of these unacceptable behaviors.

And IF you are a user looking at Pcloud and wondering if it is worth your while, I Strongly Suggest You Look Elsewhere. Pcloud will drive you up the wall with nagware, will act invasively on your machine and will only give Denial and LipService C.S. It is not worth it.

Hi Aravisian,

When I run System Monitor, pCloud is sleeping. It comes up with the the login as an autostart, purely to sync with the account in the Cloud. If I don't enter the password to sync, pCloud does not start and checking System Monitor, nothing is running from pCloud so I am somewhat at a loss as to how your experience differs from mine. A forum member informed me it is 10 Gb free space - same as Box Account - but what Box Account recently started doing was advertising it's wares to non-clients downloading the manual. Box.com is definitely one to avoid as it clearly is a fawn of that other O.S. - Not compatible with Linux (Been using it with Zorin for over a year! Not compatible with Firefox (used in Zorin and Windows 7 and no issues until they claimed I had requested not to use Firefox as it was a security risk - also 'tosh'. At present, pCloud only offers 5 Gb - I had to do something in order to get an extra 1 Gb which I did as it was not obtrusive. What it does do is then ask you to email as many of your contacts/friends as possible to give them free advertising and you free space. I ignore this as 6 Gb is enough for me. I will give SynCloud a spin but had no big issues with pCloud so far - certainly not what you are experiencing (I don't think they have my mobile and I signed up with my email name so no privacy issues broken there.

Actually, I'm going to stay with pCloud - this review states a free trial before you buy: https://www.cloudwards.net/cloud-storage-reviews/

And pCloud comes in a close second. I've had enough downloading personal stuff and uploading to a new provider - if things deteriorate (I hardly read my emails anyway!) I'll consider the move but things are OK ... for now.

(To put things in perspective a work colleague moved from the organisation we support to ours. Had two One Drive accounts - never synced. IT merged the two One Drive accounts with the new one replacing the old one - all work gone including emails and Degree course work - no way of getting it back - so I don't see the pCloud sign after logging in as an issue for me. One Drive is a different ball game altogether. I had the misfortune of having to upgrade some notebooks to Windows 10 1909 recently - you can only disable one drive you can no longer uninstall it! The Wallpaper is more blinding pale blue than Hummingbird was! And as an aside further, if you veer off the Icon menu to the left of Start it changes to a 'Netflix' alphabet grid! Windows just keeps on getting further and further away from what people want (just like Gnome and xfce eh Aravisian! <all these relate to my comments on Windows 10 and their ilk, not Aravisian!)

Lastly, pCloud does put itself in Startup Applications but that is a good thing for Syncing with online Storage - especially when you read about the One Drive debacle!

Swarfendor437 wrote:Lastly, pCloud does put itself in Startup Applications but that is a good thing for Syncing with online Storage - especially when you read about the One Drive debacle!

It is a good thing- If you want it to.
But it is NOT a good thing if it Overrides your telling it not to and does it anyway.

That is the behavior of a Virus.

Thank you Aravisian for your report on your findings in regards to Pcloud.

I have been using Sync Cloud all along and had None of the many problems I experienced with Pcloud.
Sync doesn't have Promotional offers that you can get Up To 10 gigs instead of five gigs like Pcloud.

Just for clarity - if I disable in startup it does not startup. But will double-check this evening.

I think the biggest virus where services running as users are the worst - nVidia for example on Windows - goodness knows what it does in Linux - which is why I avoid using proprietary drivers.

Ya SWARF, be careful not to install escort service, the result is you might get herpies.

OK, Syncloud is following everyone else at the moment:



pCloud auto started so removed from Startup Applications - there is no way it will start now it has been removed. Just have to login to the site.

Swarfendor437 wrote:pCloud auto started so removed from Startup Applications - there is no way it will start now it has been removed. Just have to login to the site.

There is every way- It re-adds itself to startup. That is what I have been saying.

Will reboot after checking on new posts and report back.

Just rebooted and nothing to report:

Swarfendor437 wrote:Just rebooted and nothing to report:

No pCloud in startup applications.jpg

It is Easy To Replicate. I have done so a great Many Times arguing with Pcloud Tech Support and showing them screenshots.

Download the app image.
Right click, set as Run as Executable.
Run it.
Log in.
Go to settings.
Uncheck "Autostart on system startup"
Click APPLY.
Check and recheck all you want, at this point, it will not appear in autostart.
Now, go to Log Out from the pcloud app image popover window- Unlink your account.
Open Pcloud, log in on another account (In my case, it was me using mine and my son using his account). Repeat the steps above ensuring that the app is set to not autostart.
Repeat Unlink and log out.
Restart or log out and log in.
Pcloud autostarts.
Open the Pcloud App image and look under Settings: the box for Autostart is checked, again. THIS IS DUE TO THE STEP OF UNLINKING TO CHANGE ACCOUNTS.
I have replicated this on three different machines. I have shown this to Pcloud as well.
I have replicated this on Five different Distros.
Easily. It happened each and every single time.

Am I in any way unclear?

Not unclear, just me not with it friend. So if I go to my pCloud account on line, it will put the sync thing in autostart again? As I'm currently on 6Gb to move to sync.com would mean a backward step to 5 Gb.

I outlined the replication steps one at a time, clearly.

Also pointed out that I have replicated this on Manjaro, Ubuntu/Xubuntu, Zorin, Emmabuntus, SolydX run on three different computers.
This is not a figment of my imagination, nor am I inventing it. I have examined it closely to ensure no errors before I started the thread as well as going over it with Pclouds Support which was constant denial and refusal to replicate.

Now, whether or not you, Swarfendor, use Pcloud or not is entirely your choice. You have been warned about the multiple issues of it- if they do not bother you, that is fine. But don't post repeatedly acting like there is no problem with Pclouds autostart.

Aravisian, that reminds me of all the Windows 10 users. They say they never had a problem, so they blindly use it, even though its doing things behind their back, and selling off all their information. There are other's however where Windows 10 forced updates bricked their system, but apparently that hasn't happened to enough people to make everybody switch to Linux. What kills me is that, after Windows 10 has been out for so many years now, there are people still oblivious to Microsoft spying on them, its like, how can they not know? And then the people who do know about it, don't care, and use the OS anyways.

Its this complacency that is a real problem, and its partly how corporations get away with it. We've talked about evil Amazon Alexa. Ya, well, if people weren't buying them and putting them in their houses, we wouldn't have that problem. But people rather give up their privacy for convenience. And I too think the problem with Windows 10 users is exactly the same issue. Its convenient to use Windows 10, so they use it anyways. Once the truth about Windows 10 came out, many companies were ripping the OS off of their business computers and putting Linux on them.

You can dress up and put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day, its still a pig.

Just got this email from Pcloud support:

"Thank you for taking the time to contact pCloud's Technical Support team.

We have managed to reproduce the problem and we will fix in the next versions."

Any truth to it? I don't know.

At least they are finally being honest about it. Was it intentional, hoping that other's wouldn't figure it out? Or was it simply an honest bug? I guess we will never know. What we do know is this, if the new version gets put out, and the problem still persists, then we have our answer.

star treker wrote:At least they are finally being honest about it. Was it intentional, hoping that other's wouldn't figure it out? Or was it simply an honest bug? I guess we will never know. What we do know is this, if the new version gets put out, and the problem still persists, then we have our answer.

Alternatively, they are finally being dishonest about it.
Sometimes, a child repeatedly accused of a wrong-doing will falsely confess to get a person off their back.
It seems to me, that as easily replicable as it is, they would have done that at the outset. Why wait 'til now?

Just to double check my own perceptions, I loaded up a LiveCD version last night of Debian 10. Same result.
They also claimed I was the only person to ever report the issue. I really find that difficult to believe.

Just tried signing up - no Linux support - checked on Download Page - only offers Windows and iOS - so sticking with pCloud.

https://www.sync.com/install/