I’m in the process of signing up for pCloud (lifetime deal I can’t refuse). However in order to use their pCloud Drive feature to mount their cloud drive, I have to install MacFuse ( a kernel extension ). Has anybody else done this/have pCloud? Is it safe? I don’t think I can get around this on the M1 if I want to mount this drive.
Here’s the notice I got before download: “Note: pCloud Drive requires the installation of the system extension “macFUSE” from the developer “Benjamin Fleischer” in order to run smoothly. During installation, you will be required to enable the system extension from the Security & Privacy settings of your device. The system extension is not harmful - without it, pCloud Drive will not behave properly.”
I don’t use Macs so I can’t speak specifically to MacFUSE but FUSE comes originally from Linux I think. The idea is that rather than adding drivers to the OS Kernel, it’s a FileSystem running as a User process (thus the name Filesystem in USErspace.) Assuming the code comes from a trustworthy place, it would be useful to have FUSE to support filesystems not normally native to the OS without actually modifying the OS with Kernel level drivers.
Thanks for the input. Supposedly most of the cloud services that allow you the option to “mount” their drive use this. Haven’t ready anything negative online yet, but I’m going to keep doing my due dilignece. Thanks again.
Hi @IdeaMan - if you’re like me, I listened to @Leo recommend pCloud and also signed up for their lifetime special deal on Valentine’s day. Two things concerned me that I hope they will fix:
You can download a “pCloud Drive for Mac with Apple Silicon” version of pCloud Drive - but it still requires Rosetta to run under Intel emulation.
For Fuse they recommend that you reboot your Mac in recovery mode and “reduce security by allowing user management of kernel extensions from identified developers”. Although I understand their intent, I’m not happy doing this since even if I trust macFuse, I may be opening myself up to other vulnerabilities.
Overall, I wish pCloud were more upfront about their support for M1 Macs and the requirement for this kernel extension workaround. After all, they come from Switzerland and are supposed to be super security conscious. I hope that they get around to natively supporting M1 macs using Apple’s new file system APIs soon. I do understand that other cloud storage providers like DropBox and OneDrive are having issues with M1 macs as well.
I think it’s a little bit sketch that they would say M1 version and it still be compiled for Intel. No Bueno. The security I’m not worried about. Before they came up with the default option of total lockdown, I was running for years with App Store & verified authors. This is a production machine only and I never venture anywhere questionable and It’s pretty touch to phish me. So I’m not worried. Plus, I have multiple backup redunancies.
I’m going to give pCloud the benefit of the doubt for now, but I agree they have work to do. Their customer service during the sign-up process was spot-on and there are requests I’ve made to dropbox that still have not been replied to going on three years. Dropbox is a necessary evil, but I’m trying to break away from it.
Hi @IdeaMan - makes sense and I agree on giving pCloud the benefit of the doubt. I’m taking a stricter approach to security so will wait to see what they come up with - in the mean time I guess I’ll have to use their web version only…
Thank you for contacting pCloud’s Technical Support.
Our developers used Intel components in order to design pCloud Drive version for M1 devices and this is the reason Rosetta is needed. They are currently working on a native pCloud Drive Apple Silicon version and I hope that it will be available soon
We have designed our own pCloud extension instead of macFUSE but it stopped working with the latest MacOS versions and this is the reason we made a working version with macFUSE. Enabling “reduced security" is also needed for the pCloud extension to work. I hope that the developers will find a workaround for the extensions in the near future.
And that’s what I’m talking about when I say their customer service was spot-on. And there’s your transparency.
More than just “we’re working on it.” “We’re working on it and we found a way to make it work until we figure it out.” That’s more than you get from the other companies.