Ente Locker - New app from Ente

General
41

Thanks for sharing, this is the first that I’m hearing of them. Both look cool, and a bit more complex than what we have in mind for Locker.

Unlike Drive products, your experience on Locker will be tailored to storing a few important documents and for some - to serve as a dead man’s switch. So your usage on Locker will be measured in terms of number of items, instead of the size of bytes consumed.

Also, like I earlier mentioned, we will not integrate with the file system to offer 2-way sync (like Dropbox / Drive), so data on Locker is meant to be infrequently added / updated.

Yes, for those already comfortable using a password manager, right now the incremental value will be minimal. We’re building Locker for folks who are not using one (eg. my parents), due to the sheer complexity of password managers, and for those wondering about the posterity of their digital footprint.

I agree! But Ente is unlikely to get into this because the scope for a good password manager (browser plugins, auto fills, breach notifications, …) is more than what we have in mind for Locker. It is important to us that Locker remains simple and accessible.

Legacy is the feature within Ente that enables inheritance. Data will not be wiped automatically without intimations for customers who have set this up.

I don’t have an ETA, but yes, we would like to provide this feature.

Our CLI is for data exports, but if you wish, you can setup our Desktop app to watch folders.

Yes! Like some folks pointed out, we need to iron out our marketing copies for Locker. It’ll get better with time, along with the product. Thanks a lot to everyone for the feedback so far.

We’ve increased the seats for the beta program (to paid Ente customers). So if you are interested, you can access the latest builds for Android here and iOS here.

If you’d like to chat / share feedback directly with the team, you can do so on the #locker channel on our Discord. You can also share your thoughts here, I’ll do my best to lurk around and proxy them.

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42

I hope Ente doesn’t end up on the Proton path (too horizontal, before vertically polishing existing services). Ente photos still has no way to download/export entire folders in zip format, for example.

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43

Thank you, did try it again yesterday and now it works :slight_smile:

44

In my opinion both Auth and Photos are polished enough for them to release a new product. (Locker isn’t a very big app and it’s minimalistic by design). Photos is their main product and they’ll keep working on it and are still actively releasing new features.

I’m not worried they’ll become like Proton. They’re trying to grow more so they can hire more engineers

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45

Wouldn’t recommend sharing which data you store anywhere

46

Yeah seems pretty much like a kinda everything and nothing app.

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48

The more I think about it, the more I think that Locker could be great for someone who mostly lives in the Google or Apple ecosystem. They don’t want to think much about how their stuff is stored and they want dependability. They don’t care that Google or Apple have access to files. However, there may be a handful of documents which are private that they want to store separately, and for that I think Locker seems great. I can see this rounding out someone’s security and privacy needs who may not want to make the jump to something more powerful or dedicated like Proton Drive.

4 Likes
49

Will Locker also be self-hostable like Photos and Auth?

50

I STILL DON’T GET IT

Saw the new announcement for Ente Lock. And as @jonah and others have pointed out, I don’t see the need for such a service if you already use a password manager that can store documents. Even if Ente Lock has more customizations for organizing the documents that you store, that would IMO, not be enough to attract a lot of new users.

IMO, the only feature that could potentially make the difference, is if Ente Lock allows you to automatically share those documents with loved ones if something happens to you, and without requiring that the recipient need an Ente account too.

To me, the stupidest things about the emergency features of password managers is that they require that your trustees have an account with them, which makes no sense. Imagine you’re American. Your grandmother who was Danish dies and leaves you her house and all her savings in her bank account.

Would it make sense for there to be a rule that says that you cannot inherit from a Danish citizen if you are not one yourself? No. To me, it’s the same thing.

PHYSICAL DOCUMENTS > DIGITAL DOCUMENTS

Another factor to consider is that, although digital documents are important to secure, we still live in a world where physical documents take precedence from a legal perspective. For example, my bank has a copy of my ID. They made that copy when I opened the account. I’ve had my account for many years. Despite that, every time I want to do certain transactions physically at the bank, they ask for my physical ID.

They do not care for the digital scan of my ID I have on my phone, nor do they care about the physical certified copy I have on me. Even though they already have a copy of my ID and can see my face, and therefore know that it’s me, they still want to see the original ID.

That doesn’t mean storing important digital documents isn’t useful. It absolutely is I digitize all my important physical document. But please remember to also secure your physical documents and let your loved ones know how to access them because there are many organizations, including government bodies, that do not accept digital copies.

2 Likes
51

Don’t see the value, personally. I’m a photos subscriber and auth user, love them and I’ll keep using them. Using proton mail and drive for now. Ente Photos was God sent to me after trying to use Proton Drive for photos.

52

I guess iit could be useful if you use other cloud services that do not have a way to hand over keys to next of kin, - like Proton did not have this for a while, but now does. Personally I won’t be using it either.

53

It’s actually perfect for my use case :slightly_smiling_face:

54

There is a location section which I think is intended to deal with important things that can’t be uploaded.

55

Not really, I intend to use this alongside a password manager as what someone has called a “dead mans switch”, (although I don’t identify as either :smirking_face:)

56

Interesting. I did not know ente well before learning that you recommend it here at PG. It had greatly evolved since its first iterations some time ago.

I do not understand some people’s arguments here, as legitimate as an opinion may be. Most replies here seem to argue that it is more of what Proton was already doing. Nevertheless, on Proton-related posts, not only do some users argue that what they offer isn’t exactly new or even necessary, but also that “you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket” and trust that service mindlessly.

Different persons comment different things. But I do find it disheartening. Specially when such a generous amount of storage is offered and, most importantly, at a time of severe, unexpected climate events that render us (and our belongings, such as important, health-related documents) quickly, and violently, vulnerable.

To each their own. Just wish we could find space for alternative arguments beyond “tech utility for tech nerds”. They are ultimately valid, of course, and I don’t intend to offend anyone, at all.

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57

Indeed. It is true that some people are already using their password manager for this, I am one of them. However I like the idea of keeping my password manager for passwords and separate from this facility which I see as like a solicitors safe containing the documents needed to process my estate.
I will use it, it will benefit me by compartmentalising functionality and polarising me to focus on what needs to be in there.

What’s more it’s free, my password manager isn’t, that’s not important to me but it might be to some people.

Welcome to the forum btw!

2 Likes
58

It looks like this is something similar to Quicken LifeHub, Prisidio and Trustworthy. Just a place to collect things that would be important for someone to have access to after you’re gone. Either documents, the password to your password manager, notes when where to find things, etc.

I actually really like this, since none of those solutions encrypt your documents like Ente does, so excited to see it.

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59

I think it is useful also for redundancy to avoid a single point of failure.

Let’s say you have your data on proton drive and something happens (locked out of your account, has been disabled or you messed up your backup), you could have at least a copy of your very important stuff on Ente locker.

3 Likes