I frequently have difficulty with logging in to Cozy Drive. I think the following exchange sets out one of the problems:
Me: < I have noticed on several occasions, and a message just in is another example. It notes that I am using Windows 10. I have never in my life used Windows, so I don’t know how this can be.> Cozy<I guess you’re using a browser addon that send fake user agent to the
website.
This morning, I see requests sent to your Cozy from a browser pretending
to be Firefox on MICROSOFT/Windows 10.
This requests were sent from the same IP address you used to connect
from GNU/Linux a few minutes later.>
I have found support messages like this not helpful. They don’t answer my query or what actions I should take. I have done everything possible to avoid Microsoft .etc. and would appreciate advice.
Yes not helpful.
You seem to be dealing with a robot.
It is a case of Cozy being too clever … trying to diagnose what you are doing.
Find another cloud store that simply provides a service for Linux users .
there help pages suggest they dont have the staff to support linux issues, and they have problems with gnome3 being heavy demands when trying to connect, not sure why and they dont explain much more.
As Neville suggested try another offering more suitable.
Thank you Paul and Neville for your replies. I really dislike giving up Cozy drive, because it is French and it works beautifully most of the time. However, I think support is not as good as it should be, and it has taken me too long to recognise that. (I once asked if I was getting help from a single individual or from several members of a team. The answer was that ‘it was a secret’.)
I had an earlier problem that I also put on the forum, and the supported help was of no use. It took me two years to get that sorted (by myself), and the answer was so clear that it ought to have been seen immediately by an expert.
I think Cozy is great in so many ways that I hate to do it, especially as I haven’t found an equal, but I am taking your advice and changing my cloud store.
Thanks once again.
I’ve never really tried OneDrive on Linux - but Google don’t offer a client for Linux - you have to go elsewhere… I’ve NEVER had any luck finding a reliable solution to using Google Drive on Linux. Just looked up OneDrive - it too requires relying on a third party source for a client on Linux. The only way I’ve used OneDrive or Google-Drive on Linux is via a web browser.
I used Dropbox for years, and for 3-4 years paid for it… Over those years I’ve managed to score 11.5 GB for free… But since they cut free users down to 3 simultaneous devices - I’ve stopped using it - as I have 6 or more devices I’d want to connect (1 x MacBook, 2 x Linux, 2 x iPad, 1 x Android), and I don’t want 1 or 2 TB in the cloud (which I have to have available on my system anyway - i.e. all the computers I connect would have to have 2 TB “free” to take advantage - I know tablets and phones - it does “selective sync” - NONE of my systems have more than 1 TB drives).
I recently was able to wean myself off Google Drive - As I started nudging 15 GB in 2021 - I decided to pay $2.50 a month for 100 GB - and then I started heading north of 20 Gb - and when I analysed it - to figure out what was eating my storage - it was Google’s FRAUDULENT method of tallying EVERY instance of an attachment in EVERY forward and reply to the original email thread! I had email conversations with my brother with 40 back and forth - and FORTY times the original attachment! I know for a fact Google have dedup (de-duplication) on their storage backend - so at most - there’d be three copies - but they’re adding every instance to your quota! That’s extortion IMHO! Don’t be evil my arse!
The worst thing is - in the web client (Gmail) - you can’t delete an attachment from an email - you can only delete the email! So - I was ruthless - pared back all my old emails with attachments and now my google account is under 9 GB and I will try and keep it that way.
My brother was also outraged - so where we can - if we’re going to send e.g. a photo or something “large” - it’s either a link to the image somewhere else - or - a separate email so it can easily be deleted.
So - anyways - I don’t want to overcommit myself to ANY single vendor solution - and - I don’t believe ANY of those offering “lifetime” plans - so I self host… I use Resilio Sync - and the “master” version of all my sync targets/sources, is stored on my NAS. It actually works quite well, and is even more cross-platform than Dropbox (e.g. Dropbox don’t have clients for armhf or aarch64/arm64, or the BSD family) - my router is fairly modern, and ResilioSync does UPNP - so - where permitted (e.g. over the public cloud) I can get my data when I’m on a WiFi in a coffee shop - my brother in Melbourne and I share music and photos this way too… the UPNP thing doesn’t work from the office when I go in - but I can live with that I suppose…
That’s the worst thing about these services - once you’re committed - it can be tricky to divorce yourself. Self-hosted is the answer for me.
The idea of the app is it makes the remote storage look look part of your local filesystem. You know, the way Dropbox works… you just drop files in a directory and it does the rest ( in theory).
Commes les amis de Paul, les grenouilles se moquent des Anglais, mais cela m’amuse. I have appreciated the advice and comments, although some go a bit over my head. I sought for years a simple means to store my correspondence and documents for safety and easy access. I had problems with Dropbox, so spent quite a lot of time looking elsewhere. With some difficulty I managed to install CozyDrive, and when it works, I find it does exactly what I want. When it fails, however, it is a job to get adequate help. Others that I have tried are too complicated or unreliable.
This may not be the place to bring it up, but I am rather puzzled by the point that many It’s Foss readers seem to use Microsoft and Google. It has taken me years of work, not always successful, but I have devoted my technological life to avoiding those despicable giants. It’s almost impossible to achieve total freedom, but I have been able to manage as a result of making certain sacrifices. The job is made more difficult by the way in which everyone succumbs; e.g., I have always used a de-googled telephone and downloaded apps from google-free sources, only to have run up against the latest monopolistic development, with messages from my banks and other organisations that their apps will work only if down loaded from Google store. It’s time for some EU interference.
Sorry - you come across as somewhat of a “zealot”… I agree with your sentiment to some extent - but I’m lazy so I just go with what’s convenient - hence why I also use stuff from Apple’s walled garden too… I love MacOS because it’s a “UNIX” - I don’t use Windows 'cause despite WSL - Windows is CLEARLY NOT UNIX or even remotely “UNIX-like” (I’m aware Windows NT was POSIX certified - did they keep that up?). I use GNU/Linux because it is “UNIX-like” (for all intents and purposes, Linux IS a “UNIX” and the rest is just semantics).
I recently stopped using MS Edge and Teams on Linux - I was only using them 'cause my employer let me use them, and I could sync (in MS Edge) with my corporate account. Now they’ve blocked that - I barely use any Microsoft on my Linux systems.
As for Microsoft? Some of us have jobs - we’re expected to collaborate using Microsoft tech - it’s either that or starve in my industry - sorry - I’m a pragmatist, not a zealot - I’m also a firm believer in “horses for courses” - so I’ll just keep using what the market dictates - 'cause I have bills to pay and a family to feed - despite being 62, I’m still the “breadwinner”…
@daniel.m.tripp , @ljohn
There is room for followers, and there is room for leaders, and there is even room for extremists. That is the Free bit in FOSS
and
As Daniel says, there are often compelling reasons to do things a certain way, but not always, sometimes we get to do what appeals.
I must admit being retired gives me more opportunity to pick and choose.
Dan’s little story about bread winner made me think of the song
For Neville, consider it part of your life lesson , as we discussed education before.
Having time in retirement I dont understand I am demanding more and more out of my day, want to go back to work for a rest. Slept through more meetings than i would care to name.
Thanks for the various comments. I should just like to clarify my position. I admit to being zealous in the sense of being highly concerned with a problem, but I very much resent being thought a zealot, which according to the Cambridge Dictionary suggests an insistence that others conform. That is certainly not my position, nor the ‘extremism’ which is suggested elsewhere. I raised the issue because I am genuinely interested in why so many people who support It’s Foss and have a good deal of knowledge about modern technology should also not give a second thought to supporting organisations that act in direct contradiction to the principles behind open source. Despite the ‘poof’ and shrugged shoulders, it might be pointed out that the EU have more than once fined Google for its monopolistic behaviour. I have often been told that it shouldn’t be a matter of concern if it becomes public that one stops for a pizza on the way home from work. That attitude is a serious threat to individual well-being. I highly recommend the latest work by Yannis Varoufakis with its demonstration of the ‘new feudalism’ under which we live.
I don’t want to engage in a ‘political’ argument, but neither do I want my views to be misrepresented. I do appreciate the exchanges.
Privacy in normal day to day activities, outside of the home, is not something we ever had before the digital age. Anyone can see what you are doing in a public place.
The internet in general is a public place.
The exception is when we deliberately try to create a private niche, for things like banking. It is not easy to achieve privacy and security. My attitude is we should only try for a small number of important activities.
The term “feudalism” implies being supervised and assisted. All forms of government do it. We accept that. What we seem to resent is when individuals or powerful corporations do it.
The medieval feudal system was in many ways very benevolent. I dont know how it acquired its negative image. Maybe because there was a degree of lock-in?
I agree it is rather difficult but not impossible to avoid Google lock-in. It is a case of is it worth the effort with most people.
I’ve just read your message, Paul, about Proton, for which merci beaucoup. It’s just one of the many mistakes I have made in my obsessive search for freedom from corporations. I signed up to Proton, which I thought would be ideal, only to learn after payment that I could not use my own domain. Owing to my technological ineptitude I mucked up my entire email system trying to delete Proton.
I’d like to resume this query, if I may, by showing the email I received this morning. First I might say that I took the advice offered by several who contributed that I simply drop Cozy Drive. I tried several alternatives and had nothing but trouble. (I admit that my ignorance is no doubt the cause of many problems, but I can get nothing to work as well as Cozy on a good day.)
I have been back in touch with Cozy, and received the following reply:
Here’s the User Agent of the browser you used to connect yesterday:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:128.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/128.0
That’s Firefox 128 on Microsoft/Windows.
If you’re not using Firefox on Windows, I guess you installed a browser
add that fake the browser identification string. Your Cozy use the
informations provided by your browser, but the browser can lie. If your
browser lie, wrong informations will be displayed in the Cozy.
Cheers!
I repeat that I don’t use Windows and never have, and I use Librewolf rather than Firefox. How is there so much misinformation? Any suggestions for what I can do to sort this out?
