Data Backup Digest

Younity is a new type of cloud storage. Rather than having to upload your data to a storage space online, this free application just syncs all your data privately between your devices. This means that there is no need for you to specify what data you want available to you beforehand; all of it is accessible.

This offers a more secure file service than something like Dropbox or Google Drive, which involves you uploading your data to those company’s servers. Instead, you are just streaming your data between devices. If you wish, you can choose to download your data to your device if you know you’ll need it offline, but this isn’t a necessity. It frees up your storage space and doesn’t make file sharing such a headache.

Younity also offers some great features when it comes to sharing your data with others. In a way, it acts like Snapchat.

Snapchat is one of the most popular apps available to download on mobile devices. For those unaware, it allows users to send photos and videos to one another on a strict timer limit. For a maximum of ten seconds, the recipient has a limited amount of time to view the data before it is deleted from the device. In a similar sort of way, this is what Younity does with its file sharing.

Younity allows you to share any of your data with anyone else who is also using the app. This means that your music, videos, photos and documents can be simply sent to another user. However, the shared data is never permanently downloaded, but instead streamed. As such, it isn’t overly simple for the other user to take the data and do what they wish with it (although there are ways round this for data like photos for the more tech savvy).

This means that Younity can’t be used as an illegal peer-to-peer file sharing network. “It’s the equivalent of me playing a CD in your car,” says Erik Caso, Entangled Media CEO. “You can listen to a song, but you can’t download it. You can only go buy it, and I can unshare it at any time.”

When you share your data you have the ability to stop sharing it at any time and revoke access from the other user. Additionally, the data you share is, by default, expired after seven days. You can see how long the file is shared for by logging in to your Younity account and checking out ‘Files you’ve shared’ under the ‘Sharing’ section. The company’s FAQ say that they are interested in hearing user’s thoughts on file expiration, suggesting that this feature is still a work in progress.

Younity is currently available to download for free from the website. At the moment the program is available for Windows and Mac devices. It is hoped that an Android version will be available in the future. Check out the website and see what you think; a FAQ can also be found there which might answer any questions you have.