Can you tell me about Google+Photos?
 

I'm not totally computer illiterate, but, I'm not sufficiently knowledable about cloud based software, etc.

What is Google+ Photos? Do you use it and how does it help manage photos? Is it any good?

Good question! I wonder just what cloud is and does it make my pictures public if so I am not interested but with other computers that have crashed I have lost a lot of photos

I would not store anything on cloud. You never what can happen to your
photos and personal info. I'd rather buy an external hard drive and store
everything on there. JMHO.

I found that I prefer to have my photos on my old computer. Have a great software called PhotoDeluxe (version 4) by Adobe that allow me to crop and store the photos on my computer. You know that the cloud is just a server located somewhere on this earth.

I'm like you, I know computers get paid for my job on them but this cloud thing. I figure that if someone can hack into my home pc what's the stopping them from the cloud, where ever that maybe. I just don't trust it.

If you pay for a server to hold your files so you can access them from where ever you are, if that server goes out of business, how are you going to get your files? Photos take a long time to load whichever direction they are going(uploading or downloading). If you use such a service, use it as just one of your backups for your digital records. Keep an external hard drive or two or three, too. Keep them away from magnets. Print a hard copy of pictures you cannot live without. If the digital files disappear, you can make more from your hard copies. And yes, servers get broken into all the time so your pictures could easily be extracted and used by others. I like having a server that I cannot destroy but I am also aware that the server could be compromised or go out of business. I keep more than one copy as a result. Yes, I'm a conspiracy theory-generation baby. If it can go wrong, it will, lol. But I'll do my best to plan around Murphy's Law. Cloud servers are very convenient but they have their problems.

Hi folks,

I checked on the Net and Google+ Photos is really just another social media platform. Which I am not a fan of in any way. So, I won't be going there. Putting my information/files/pictures on the cloud makes me uncomfortable.

Thanks for your comments.

Cheryl

I have documents stored on 'the cloud' so I can access from anywhere with any device. No personal info within the doc beond a name, phone and email address which can be found anywhere. As someone else mentioned, the 'cloud' is simply a server housed somewhere here on earth. While I am not particularly a 'conspiracy theorist' I do next to nothing online..no banking, little shopping, etc. I do not believe today's hackers care one iota about our personal pc's...they get a bigger bang hacking our banks, department stores, cc companies. Even if we don't do anything online personally our info is housed by these companies and is at risk regardless.

Back to the question of stori g photos on the cloud...I would probably get an external hard drive and keep it local but would not have an issue using the cloud either. I use onedrive.com and do not share or make anything public.

The cloud is simply a server that is somewhere in the world. The purpose is to give folks a place to store stuff so they can access it anywhere (but you have to have internet connections) and so they don't need a big hard drive. DH had a bad experience -- he was storing pictures on a web site (what we used to call the cloud) and the site closed down and we could not get out pictures. I prefer to keep everything locally --you can get a big thumb drive that works well for storing pictures (I do it all the time).

I take my pictures on my phone, then bluetooth them to my tablet and laptop. I have smartthumbs and sd cards and an external hd which is smaller than alot of cameras. No need to store my stuff out there somewhere.