Silicon Valley and Washington take care: Our founder Andrea will be travelling to the United States at the end of May. But not alone! She will be part of the official German delegation and make this journey together with the German Federal Minister of Economics Dr. Philipp Rösler.
BoxCryptor has been chosen as one of a few selected German start-ups who get the chance to accompany the Minister on his tour. They will visit the Silicon Valley for three days and then continue their journey to Washington. Along the way they will also stop by at Stanford University and present the German start-ups to a group of VCs.
After getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning on Monday to drive to Munich and apply for a VISA, finally Andrea got back her passport today (as the delegation will be flying with the official German military aircraft (an A-340) they need a special VISA). So now everything is ready for the trip.
We will keep you up-to-date about the trip and her experiences with the delegation in the United States so make sure to follow Andrea (@AndreaWittek) and BoxCryptor (@BoxCryptor)!
First of all we want to thank everyone that has taken the time to share their feedback with us in regards to the technical preview of our new Boxcryptor generation. It is very important for us to listen to you as users and customers in order to provide a product and a service which fulfills your needs and meets your requirements.
Since the release of the technical preview of the new Boxcryptor generation we have received lots of great feedback concerning the improvements and new features, which has been very encouraging for our entire team. But, at the same time, we received concerns from existing users regarding our plan to drop support for the 1.x versions 12 months after the official release of the new Boxcryptor. We understand that some Boxcryptor users are 100% happy with the current 1.x versions and that there is a legitimate interest to keep them as their cloud security solution of choice.
Therefore we will continue to offer the 1.x versions, which will be available as “Boxcryptor Classic” on our new website, and we will continue to offer regular support– independent from the release of the new Boxcryptor generation.
We are convinced that this is the best solution for existing and potential customers who do not want to move to the new Boxcryptor and are happy with the current versions. We want to give our users the possibility to choose the product which best fulfills their needs, and if our existing 1.x version is the right solution for you, then you will still be able to download it and purchase it on our website. We will also continue to offer support and updates for it so you can continue using it also for the long term. For example, we will submit a new version of our Windows RT app to Microsoft within the next days: Besides SkyDrive, our Windows RT app then also includes Dropbox as a storage provider.
For those users who would like to take advantage of benefit from our new features such as secure file access sharing without revealing your password, creating groups options, having a master key, and more, then our new Boxcryptor will be the perfect solution for you.
If you study computer sciences at a University because you want to become a software developer, this is sometimes very theoretical. Often students do not get the chance to have a closer look at e.g. how to develop an app on their own.
In order to give students some insights into the programming of an Android app and to support them with their first steps in Android programming, our Android developer Boris visited the University of Augsburg for one day and run an Android tutorial organized by the organization AISTA.
For one whole day, 24 selected students and employees of the University of Augsburg had the chance to get a theoretical introduction of the Android SDK. After that, they were able to do their first steps with the Android SDK and had to solve the tasks prepared by Boris.
Boris and our intern Johannes supported them and answered all their questions. Of course they also got some information concerning BoxCryptor and about our company.
At the end of the day, everybody had learned a lot. Boris conluded that “it was great to see so much interest in Android development. It was a great experience to work with the students on their first Android apps.”
The next generation of Boxcryptor is one step closer and we would like to invite you to try the new Boxcryptor Technical Preview. This new Boxcryptor has been developed by taking into consideration the great learning and feedback we have gathered from our current and potential users, as well as our own experiences with our product and where we see it going. Among many new features, the official new Boxcryptor will offer easier and better collaboration options that are extremely important for teams in business environments and for private users who would like to share access to specific files with others without having to share their private passwords. Also, for companies the new version will offer options to set policies, have a master key in order to have access to the encrypted information when necessary, and much more.
Some of the new Boxcryptor features and improvements that you can already experience in this Technical Preview are:
Easier access to your files: there are no special Boxcryptor folders and multiple drives as the current 1.x versions have. There will only be one Boxcryptor drive where you can access all your encrypted files.
Secure sharing of file access: you don’t have to share your private password with others to share access to your files with the new Boxcryptor. Your private password will always stay secret, even when sharing access to single files or folders with others. Your private password will never be transferred.
Group function: in the technical preview you will be able to use our group function: simply share your files with your whole team with one single click. You can also create groups and add and delete members.
Easier access to your files: there are no special Boxcryptor folders and multiple drives as the current 1.x versions have. There will only be one Boxcryptor drive where you can access all your encrypted files.
Other features coming soon are:
Company Account with Master Key: a company will be able to create a company account which offers additional features such as a master key, which gives the possibility to decrypt all files that have been created by the company members (employees). This allows the company to always have access to all the company files even in complicated situations (e.g. when an employee leaves the company). Moreover, it will be able to have a Reset Password Functionfor its members and to define policies (e.g. minimum password length).
Boxcryptor Business users will have a centralized administration and billing.
Please note that Boxcryptor remains a zero-knowledge software and we don’t have access to your keys or passwords. Any information we receive from you is encrypted and protected by your password which never leaves your device or gets transferred. Please make sure to remember your password or keep a safe copy.
FAQ: You can find Frequently Asked Questions in our Knowledgebase.
Requirements:
.NET 4.0 (will be installed during installation)
Windows Vista or above. (XP is not supported in the technical preview, but will be in the final release).
IMPORTANT:
Do NOT use it for production data.
Make sure to backup your data.
If there’s something wrong execute Boxcryptor with command line argument /debug. A file called Boxcryptor.svclog will be placed on your desktop. Please send this file to our support at support@boxcryptor.com
Technical Preview – Android
Our Technical Preview for Android only includes basic upload and download features, and is only available for Dropbox (but also several accounts at a time) and local storage. Please also notice that we have only a very limited error handling which means that you do not get (detailed) error messages if you try to execute a function which is not yet available or the if the app crashes.
We want our current Boxcryptor users to know that the current existing 1.x versions will remain available and will continue to be supported for 12 months after the official release of the next generation of Boxcryptor (Mid-May 2013 estimated release). Also, we want to share that the new Boxcryptor will have a different pricing model. Besides the free version which we will still offer, the new Boxcryptor generation will switch to a subscription model starting from 3€ per user per month (private use) for the paid licenses. For existing Boxcryptor customers we will have the following special upgrade offers. Nevertheless we will still offer a free version for our private users.
Customers who:
Upgrade to New Boxcryptor
Purchased a license before January 21, 2013
Get a special 50% reduction of the first year’s fee (first 12 months after release)
Purchased a license after January 21, 2013
Get the first 12 months after the official release for free!
Purchase a license today
Get the first 12 months after the official release for free!
If you have any questions or would like to share your feedback with us, please contact us anytime at support@boxcryptor.com.
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