Google Photos and iCloud Photos are two cloud-based tools to view, organize, and share photos and videos on the web. They are the default applications for this type of service on Android and iOS, which gives them a dominating grip on the market.
While convenient to use, not all Internet users may want to allow Google, an advertising company, to store their photos and videos online. There are plenty of alternatives when it comes to photo hosting, and one of the newest is PixelUnion.
PixelUnion is based in the Netherlands. The service promises an ad-free and tracking-free experience that resembles the photo services of Google and Apple. Users who sign-up for the service get 16 GB of online storage with the free account. Paid accounts start at €29,50 per year for 150 GB and €99,50 per year for 1 TB of online storage. Custom plans of up to 20 TB are also available.
There is one caveat though, at least for users who want full control over their photos at all times. PixelUnion does not support end-to-end encryption. Most photo hosting services do not support this. Google Photos does not. But if that is one of your requirements, PixelUnion is not for you.
Main features of PixelUnion:
- Stored in the European Union by EU companies.
- Secure and private photo storage.
- Show photos on map.
- Full API access.
- Uses the open source Immich app for mobile access.
- Option to self-host.
- Advanced features: facial recognition with privacy, AI object recognition, add users, advanced deduplication, no uploading limits, sharing of photos, detailed image searching.
Signing up for a free account is a simple process. You need to pick a name for your storage, which also is the subdomain (name.pixelunion.eu) for web access and management. You can upload photos via the web interface or via Immich.
You can share uploaded photos and videos as albums with others or keep them to yourself. PixelUnion uses facial recognition to detect people and claims that the machine learning stays in the user’s container. There does not seem to be an option to turn this feature off at this point though.
Closing Words
PixelUnion promises Google Photos-like functionality with better privacy. So, if your pain point is that your photos and videos do get stored on US-based servers, then it may be a valid option. The free plan is generous and the paid plans are user-friendly options to avoid self-hosting an instance.
However, PixelUnion is a new service that does not have a track record. Privacy-conscious users who require end-to-end encryption need to look elsewhere as well, as this is not offered by PixelUnion.
All in all, it could become a good alternative to Google Photos for users who prefer hosting in the European Union and a bit more privacy as well.
Promising alternative, most likely (haven’t tried it). Think and practice alternatives.
Connects only to two 3rd-party servers (good sign):
[fonts.googleapis.com] not needed, block system-wide or at least within the browser.
[cdn.jsdelivr.net] : always allow, most valuable, healthy.
Even if you don’t user Google services, the number of sites which connect to one or more of its servers is amazing, block unless required for a correct page display, or rather block systematically all Google servers and use the ‘LocalCDN’ extension. No need for Google to know who’s calling them when that who is you.
Free = You are the product.
Not every free product is in the line of Google and others’ (mainly American) “free” services.
It’s like in life when we get suspicious about kind people on the ground that crooks smile so well and, reciprocally, tend to have confidence in big mouths on the ground that honest people don’t waste time smiling and being kind.
We remain enormously tied to appearances and forget to scrutinize, analyze … in one word: to think.
If you go read the lengthy TOS the leads to multiple pages you’ll find many loopholes that can be exploited. One in particular caught my eye.
“We don’t do business with anyone outside the UE but, you can still access our services.”
As they are not “doing busniess” with me, legally, the TOS of which the privacy policy is part of, would not apply.
That second comment of yours is an argument whilst the first was an assertion expressed as (or understood by myself as) a principle, a vague generalization stating that what is free would mean it is, by nature, making the user the product. My remark concerned the generalization hence did not imply the product mentioned in the article is or is not another tricky one.
You see, the problem with dishonesty is that we tend to believe it is a fact denying honesty in proportion of its occurrences : get tricked 999 times and you may miss the next which is free of any trick. Lend money to friends 99 times and never get your money back and you may miss lending to someone who really needs it, is honest and would have reimbursed you. Be an alien landing on destroyed lands of war and you may believe humans are all savages …
Anyway, I think I better understand you now 🙂
I don’t use cloud services period. Flash storage devices are relatively cheap these days and in the Netherlands you can pickup a 4 TB Portable SSD USB Flash drive for a little over €300. No point in storing your private data in whatever form it takes on somebody else’s server which is only going to cost more over time and for which you need an Internet connection to access it.
Degoo? I keep a few things there–movie clips, etc. 20GB of storage.
I think users dislike Mega, but . . . I have a few things there as well. 50GB of free storage–not bad.
Media Fire used to offer massive “free” storage–yes, I have a few things there. 20GB of storage, but I think it’s only 10GB now.
Box
Jumpshare
One Drive
etc. etc.