Client-side encryption for cloud storage

Question

I'm looking for client-side encryption software for Windows 10, that can be used for any cloud storage service (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive etc.). I used to use BoxCryptor Classic, but that doesn't work for Windows 10. The current BoxCryptor version can't be bought, only rented, and I while I don't mind paying a reasonable one-time price, I don't want a keep-paying-forever-solution.

I've looked at, and excluded, these programs so far:

• BoxCryptor Classic - Perfect match for my use case on Windows 7 & 8, but doesn't work on Windows 10.
• BoxCryptor - Can't be bought, only rented.
• Cloudfogger - Got killed just a few days ago.
• Cryptomator - At present, this doesn't work for my use case due to a couple of bugs. Exe files in CryptoMator vaults sometimes won't start or even copy. Some programs can't read files from vaults, e.g. OpenVPN can't read config files. IMHO, the fundamental design is great and Cryptomator could be the best alternative if and when the bugs are fixed.
• EncFS4win - A revival of the discontinued encfs4win. Randomly unmounts encrypted drives while copying large directory structures. File name encryption creates long names, resulting in file paths that are too long for Windows.
• PanBox - According to creators, Windows 10 support is experimental at present (July 2016). I ran into problems showing that it's not ready for use. Some examples: "Error 0x800705AA: Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service" when copying large directories, attempts to copy files are ignored if there's already a file with the same name present (no overwrite/rename dialog, the operation is just ignored), sometimes files are shown in the explorer view but when you try to open or delete them you get an error that the file doesn't exist. Update 2019-05-12: PanBox is gone.
• Safe - Doesn't work on Windows 10: attempting to create a safe either results in error message "Unexpected Error Occurred" or Safe simply hangs during the creation process. Only one contributor on GitHub. Seems abandoned since 2014.
• VeraCrypt - Great for what it's built for: encryption of local storage. Not for the cloud, unless you enjoy uploading a 5 GB virtual drive image to Dropbox every time you change a 5 kB text file.
• Viivo - Uses one encrypted folder (for cloud sync) and a synchronized plain text folder. That means that everything you sync to the cloud takes twice the disk space (I'm trying a synced plain text folder now. Syncing has been stuck at 28228 files of 33000 totaling 2.7GB for 3 hours now). You can use it without the synchronized plain text folder, but then you can't open your files from within your programs. You can only double click them to have them opened by their default programs. That's plain weird.

I know about git-annex, but starting to use it seems a project in itself, including studying new, arcane concepts and getting 3 different projects (git-annex, rcloud, GnuPG) working together. I might spend a weekend or two on it as a last resort, but primarily I'm looking for something you just install and run, i.e. like Cryptomator but without the bugs.

Answer 1

There is a free and basic tool called CryptSync which is something like a cross between 7Zip (for compression and encryption) and SynchToy (for scheduled synch).

You can synch compressed and encrypted copies of specified files and folders to your locally stored cloud folder which in turn synchs with the cloud storage.

Although I like it, for me there are a few problems with CryptSync, as follows:

1. long paths and filenames cannot be encrypted due to them being too long for Windows to handle
2. the option for scheduling are limited i.e. the sync has to be set at x minutes after last sync (no set times or daily, weekly intervals or incremental backups etc.)
3. although there is a warning if a particular file fails to encrypted and sync, this is not a pop up warning (a user has to view the log and figure out what to do e.g. shorten the file name)

The beauty of CryptSync is that it saves files to any local copy of cloud storage folder. The user is not tied in with a particular Cloud storage service provider, which is what you wanted.

A premium tool to do something similar might be a paid version of SynchBack.

Of course, it would be great if one could encrypt directly to the cloud without saving a local copy. Arq does this but only works with some cloud storage providers. There is also Tresorit and SpiderOak which are their own storage service providers therefore they do not work with all cloud storage services.

Perhaps what you need is the free Duplicati (for Windows) or Duplicity (for *nix systems). Failing this you could purchase a software with more features such as SynchBackPro or CloudBerry.

For an alternative elaboration of the above see https://superuser.com/questions/875435/how-can-i-back-up-selected-folders-to-onedrive-and-encrypt-them/1221112#1221112

Answer 2

Maybe PanBox. Their Github page claims that

You can download the manual for PanBox from www.panbox.org, which fits for the Windows, Linux and Android version.

The download page references GPLed binaries and claims to be compatible to Windows in various versions:

Panbox 1.1.2 für Windows 7 SP1 / 8.x / 10 (experimentell)

sha256: a69e578be27949d88db3c02ed799b83c1590af939123607486e49800cac7aa7d

Dokan 0.6.1 für Windows 7 SP1 / 8.x / 10 - bitte vor Panbox installieren!

sha256: e0b329dee959893c57a4999bd04dea96c3e814155528b271c7e7b4e565bb7cea

Answer 3

Due to the kill of Cloudfogger I made a similar research and finally found nCrypted.

Still lacking the seamless explorer integration such as Cloudfogger but it does the work! It is only for a few cloud storage providers: Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box and Egnyte.