Governments, agencies and public services have the immense responsibility to protect citizen’s data. With the tremendous amount of choices for online collaboration tools hosted by dozens of different vendors, it is hard to keep an overview of where that data is. At the same time, strict policies forbidding employees from using random third-party platforms limits their productivity and it is hard to ensure the rules are followed.

The best solution is of course to offer a single collaboration platform that is easy to use, offers all functionality users need AND that can be trusted with sensitive data. But can you trust a third party vendor with such power? There are legal but also public image consequences of a choice of vendor.

What if you didn’t have to rely on any third party at all and you could keep data under your own control?

Amid rising concerns about digital sovereignty, many governments and public services are discovering the benefits of an open-source, on-premises collaboration platform in Nextcloud. Let’s dig into why governments around the world are choosing the Nextcloud solution.

Host your data at home

Foreign cloud providers like Microsoft and Google have obtained customers across the globe, however for those outside of the USA, there are legal and practical consequences.

One of those is being subject to the pressure of a foreign government.The U.S. has laws in place that force tech companies to release their data to US intelligence agencies as well as businesses or government agencies when a court mandates it. This can even happen under a gag order, so the entity which has its data handed over will not know about it – or only long after it happened. In short, foreign data is at risk and could be compromised at anytime whenever it is being held by US based companies. Note the wording – this extends beyond US borders! Even data in an European data center is subject to the US CLOUD Act, signed by US president Donald Trump. Despite international efforts to remedy the situation, even the EU-US Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy framework does not eradicate the risk involved.

It is far safer to house your data within trusted data servers in your country. With Nextcloud, governments and public services can be in control over their data and do not not have to worry about foreign regulations or changing laws. Out of all our government customers, hosting data in one’s own country is the highest priority that can be achieved by deploying Nextcloud.

For instance, the City of Geneva in Switzerland placed high importance on a cloud solution that is secure and compliant with data privacy law. With Nextcloud, these requirements were all possible and to prove it, even an extensive audit was executed to make sure our solution was the best fit.

Avoid vendor lock-in

A serious risk with SaaS vendors is around vendor lock-in. Vendor lock-in, often designed into SaaS products, is a situation where a customer can not move away from a vendor as the switching costs would be very high. This is not just in terms of money – often, moving away means losing (meta) data, or incurring a significant period where there will be no service. Taking data out of a cloud service, for example, can take a long time, and shut down operations. Here are several identifiable risks:

1. If sanctions force the vendor to shut down their product or service, they go bankrupt, or the company is sold, the customer is stuck. If they want to update their policies that go against your protocols, they have the power to do so without informing you in advance. This kind of unreliability cannot be tolerated by government and public sector entities.
2. If the vendor raises prices, you’re stuck paying the new price.

1. If your company relies on a critical product, feature or integration provided by the vendor and they decide to discontinue it, you’re completely out of luck and will be left to find a new solution.

What’s the perfect antidote against the risks of vendor lock-in? The answer is open source. When you run open source software like Nextcloud yourself or at a local hosting provider, nobody has the power to shut down your service or lock you out of your data. Even if, for whatever reason, Nextcloud would no longer be a reliable vendor, availability of the source code and our policies on open standards would allow customers to migrate to other solutions while they keep their service running for the time inbetween.

Protect citizens data

With a growing digitization, the challenge of privacy and security becomes ever bigger. Governments can not be seen to leak data of citizens. It is paramount that government institutions have a solution in place that gives them and their citizen’s the certainty that the way they store and work with data is secure.

With Nextcloud Files, government entities can rely on secure document exchange internally and with other organizations. Security features like File Drop, group folders with advanced permissions and persistent versioning create a safe environment to work.

Boost digitization

With so many productivity tools out on the market, it’s easy to pick a few that you think are best for their main use: The fastest internal chat, the sleekest mail system and the most versatile file storage. However, constantly switching between different applications can produce a toggle tax or the cognitively taxing switch from one task to another. It also increases your reliance on multiple platforms and the companies that back them.

With a single platform like Nextcloud, all your applications from file storage to email are in one place and backed by you.

Using a single platform enables stronger productivity, collaboration and security as well as significantly lowers costs and maintenance work.

What Nextcloud offers

Nextcloud offers a modern, easy to use Content Collaboration Platform accessible through mobile, desktop, and web interfaces. Teams collaborate seamlessly in real-time documents, chat, and engage in video calls, access their email or plan meetings in calendars. As a pure software vendor, Nextcloud does not force customers to host in its data centers but works with a variety of leading partners to provide SaaS or on-premises solutions.

• Don’t hand your data to a third party
• Fully auditable code
• No vendor lock-in
• Industry leading security features
• Integrated collaboration environment

Pave your own path towards digital sovereignty

It’s never too late to start building your path towards full digital sovereignty. With Nextcloud, it can be accomplished and once you reclaim your data, you’ll never look back.

The post Digital Sovereignty for Governments with Nextcloud Enterprise appeared first on Nextcloud.

E2EE improvements in Hub 4

End-to-end encryption is designed to keep a sub-set of super important data confidential, even in the worst case of a server breach. Its value goes beyond breaches, however. In some situations in large organizations, an extra layer of security is needed because you might not be allowed to trust the system administrators. Think of the financial details of a corporation that is on the stock market. Or simply the employee dossiers from the HR department. Even admins should not gain access to those. This is what End-to-End encryption makes possible.

With Hub 4 and the 3.8.0 version of the desktop client come two improvements to end-to-end encryption.

First, we introduce sharing. Before, after picking a folder for end-to-end encryption, users could work in this folder and access it from all their clients, mobile and desktop, but not share it. It is now possible for the HR team to share their folders with confidential dossiers with each other, or the Finance department to prepare the quarterly report together.

The second feature brings File Drop to E2EE. You may already use File Drop – the Nextcloud feature that allows your external personnel, clients and partners to easily upload files to a secure cloud folder through a hyperlink.

With the new Nextcloud Hub 4 release, File Drop now includes the option to upload files to End-to-End Encrypted folders for increased security in your organization.

Receive confidential files in a secure, trustworthy way without worrying about breaches. It’s simple, secure and a no fuss file exchange.

Going back to the HR department – the team can now send job applicants a link where they can securely upload their resume’s directly in an end-to-end encrypted folder, shared in the HR team. And the Finance team can receive external financial information in an easy and secure way.

Version 3.8.0 of the desktop client is now available for download on our website. If you have the Windows or Mac clients, they will download the update and ask you to install/upgrade. As Linux user, you can either get the new Appimage or let your distro packaging system take care of it.

The post Desktop 3.8: End-to-End Encryption levels up with sharing and file-drop appeared first on Nextcloud.

We hope you enjoy the new iOS app!

Nextcloud Reviews

The post Nextcloud for iOS 4.7 improves image upload and document editing appeared first on Nextcloud.

Update: 3.7.0 Desktop client version had a crash that was discovered after the final binaries were built. This is fixed in the latest released version of Desktop client 3.7.1. Please update to the latest version.

What’s new?

Rewritten share dialog

Interactive Talk notifications

Lock file when editing locally

Resync button & sync improvements

Check the full changelog with many fixes and improvements! See for yourself what’s new by watching the snippets below.

Lock file while editing locally

Easily lock your file when editing locally.

Thank you to our amazing community!

A big thank you goes out to all the awesome members of our community that regularly help us make Nextcloud better by translating Nextcloud to other languages or reporting and fixing issues!

Would you like to contribute to our Desktop client too? Check out all you need to know here.

Feedback

We appreciate your feedback! Feel free to share your comments with us or continue the discussion in our forums. What’s the best thing about the Nextcloud desktop client so far?

The post Desktop Client 3.7 with new share dialog, better syncing and more! appeared first on Nextcloud.

Die AWO Berlin-Mitte ist ein großer Anbieter von Sozialarbeit und Wohlfahrtspflege in Berlin. Sie ist eine Freiwilligen- und Mitgliederorganisation mit 1.300 Mitgliedern und bietet Dienstleistungen an, die von der Leitung von Kindertagesstätten über die Hilfe für Menschen mit Behinderungen und Obdachlose bis hin zu Dienstleistungen für asylsuchende Flüchtlinge, Wohnungs- und Beratungsdienste und mehr reichen.

Infolge der Pandemie wurde ein großer Teil der Beratungs- und Verwaltungsarbeit der Organisation auf Fernarbeit umgestellt. Um ihren Mitarbeitern und Freiwilligen die Möglichkeit zu geben, flexibel von zu Hause aus zu arbeiten, brauchten sie eine Lösung. Darüber hinaus legte die AWO Berlin-Mitte großen Wert darauf, dass die neue Lösung im Gegensatz zu anderen gängigen Plattformen wie Microsoft und Google zu 100 % GDPR-konform ist. Aus diesem Grund wandte sich der angesehene Verband für Sozialarbeit an Nextcloud.

Nextcloud bietet der AWO Berlin-Mitte eine sichere Online-Zusammenarbeitsplattform, die ihren Bedürfnissen entspricht. Für die tägliche Kommunikation und Zusammenarbeit mit Kollegen nutzen die Mitarbeiter Nextcloud Talk, Deck, Tasks und Polls. Zugriffskontrolllisten sind ein Schlüsselmerkmal für die Sicherheit und die Erfüllung der GDPR-Anforderungen machen Nextcloud zur idealen Lösung.

GDPR-konforme Lösung

Jeden Tag arbeiten die Mitarbeiter von Berlin-Mitte von Fall zu Fall mit den personenbezogenen Daten von Menschen. Die Sozialarbeiter tragen die Verantwortung dafür, dass diese vertraulichen Daten nicht nach außen dringen. Mit Nextcloud können die Mitarbeiter personenbezogene Daten verarbeiten, speichern und löschen, ohne sich um den Datenschutz sorgen zu müssen, da die Daten auf Servern liegen, die zu 100 % von der AWO kontrolliert werden.

Die Erfüllung der europäischen und deutschen Datenschutzanforderungen war für die AWO Berlin-Mitte ein entscheidender Faktor bei der Entscheidungsfindung. Nextcloud bietet der AWO Berlin-Mitte eine sichere Online-Zusammenarbeitsplattform, die ihren Bedürfnissen entspricht.

Unendliche Zusammenarbeit

Derzeit wird Nextcloud von rund 600 Mitarbeitern der AWO Berlin aktiv genutzt.

Mit einer breiten Palette von Integrationen und Anwendungen, darunter Mindmap, Aufgaben und Umfragen, ist Nextcloud zu einem unverzichtbaren Tool für die Optimierung der Zusammenarbeit geworden.

Für die Zukunft plant die AWO Berlin, auch ihre Ehrenamtlichen in Nextcloud einzubinden – so können alle Mitglieder der Organisation zusammenarbeiten!

Schlüsselfunktion für die AWO: ACLs

Für Berlin-Mitte war das Vorhandensein konfigurierbarer Gruppenordner, die spezielle Zugriffs- und Autorisierungsrechte ermöglichen, ein Schlüssel zum Erfolg. Dies war besonders wichtig beim Umgang mit vertraulichen Daten in komplexen Diensten.

Jetzt haben Administratoren die Kontrolle darüber, was ihr Team innerhalb eines Ordners, Unterordners oder Dokuments tun kann. Dieses System wird als Access Control List bezeichnet und ermöglicht es dem Administrator, festzulegen, wer einen Ordner oder ein Dokument lesen, schreiben, erstellen, löschen, freigeben und herunterladen darf. Gruppenordner geben den Administratoren die nötige Autorität und schaffen gleichzeitig ein kollaboratives Umfeld für die Mitarbeiter.

Erfahren Sie mehr über die AWO Berlin-Mitte und ihre Aufgaben auf ihrer Website.

Was halten Sie von diesem Anwendungsfall?

Wenn Sie der Meinung sind, dass Ihr Unternehmen ähnliche Dateispeicher, Kollaborationstools und Prozesse benötigt, sollten Sie sich unsere Seite Nextcloud für Unternehmen ansehen oder sich von einem Nextcloud-Experten kontaktieren lassen.

Fordern Sie noch heute eine sofortige Testversion, einen Proof of Concept oder ein Angebot an!

The post 600 Mitarbeiter der Berliner NGO AWO arbeiten über Nextcloud zusammen appeared first on Nextcloud.

What’s new?

• File thumbnails in VFS view on Windows
• Better notifications on macOS
• Improved account wizard
• Activity item click opens the local file if possible
• User status dialog is now much nicer and has an animation
• Check the full changelog of over 130 other fixes and improvements!

Screenshots

For this release of the desktop client, the team continued to focus on stabilizing and improving design elements that make the user experience better. We show the changes in the pictures below.

Thank you to our amazing community!

A big thanks go to all the awesome members of our community that regularly help us make Nextcloud better, by translating Nextcloud to other languages or reporting and fixing issues!

Would you like to contribute to our Desktop client too? Check out all you need to know here.

Feedback

We appreciate your feedback! If you’d like to share your comments with us, continue the discussion in our forums. What’s the best thing about the Nextcloud desktop client so far?

The post Nextcloud desktop client 3.6.0 is here with UX and visual improvements! appeared first on Nextcloud.

Twice a year, Nextcloud hosts Enterprise Day for all prospective and current customers. It’s a great opportunity to gain more information about Nextcloud, discuss changing demands in business and their impact on IT security, as well as talk personally to our experts, customers, partners, and guest speakers.

Last June, Enterprise Day was hosted at the dazzling Raddisson Collection Hotel. The Raddisson is located at the edge of Alexanderplatz, directly next to the DDR Museum and Berliner Dom, as well as across the street from the Humboldt Forum. Come for the talks, drinks, and conversations, and stay to explore the illuminous city of Berlin!

The day started out with a welcoming coffee as people made their way in and got settled. We like everyone to be able to ease into the day and have the chance to say a few hellos before the main event begins. From there, everyone gathered in the spacious meeting room where Nextcloud’s owner and CEO, Frank Karlitschek, gave an enlightening intro into Nextcloud’s company goals and future vision.

Frank’s opening session was followed by a variety of talks, beginning with a product overview and followed by a session from our productivity partners Collabora and Sendent, covering Nextcloud Office and our Microsoft Outlook integration. After lunch, Maxime Le Héricy, our Sales Engineer in France, started his talk by comparing a Proof of Concept with drilling a well – you need to go through the steps carefully to make sure things work out for you!

The afternoon also saw a session where the participants discussed their needs with the Nextcloud management team and closed with the presentation of a number of case studies in the Health, Government, Education, and Enterprise sectors.

Once the official event adjourned, everyone was invited to the hotel bar on the main floor to have a drink, relax after a long day, and continue conversations. This bar happened to showcase a gigantic fish tank in the middle of the hotel called the AquaDom! The AquaDom is a 25 meter tall, cylindrical acrylic glass aquarium with a built-in transparent elevator for viewing fish. In fact, it’s the largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium in the world!

The post Nextcloud Enterprise Day recap – and chance to book for the next! appeared first on Nextcloud.

Nextcloud Files 3.5 for desktop

The 3.5 version of the Nextcloud desktop client is out, bringing new features and plenty of smaller improvements designed to make a better user experience. Update your desktop today to benefit from the innovative and engaging features!

What’s new on the desktop client?

• Dark mode support (including automated detection)
• Automatic file locking
• Improved interaction with Talk: notifications and Talk calls
• Quick reply directly from main dialogue
• Improved activity list with easier interaction
• Custom server color scheme
• Many small improvements to MacOS native support
• Easy pre-release testing

Find out more details and the full changelog of 3.5 and of course, contributions in perfecting this release are very much welcome!

Install

Nextcloud Files 3.20 for Android

In addition, the 3.20 version of the Nextcloud Android client is out too! Update your smartphone today to take advantage of these great new features developed by our team on Google Play or F-Droid!

Often times, you need to open and view a PDF on your mobile. With the new built-in PDF viewer for Nextcloud Files, you can do just that even if you don’t have another PDF viewer on your device. This feature has all the basic functionalities you need and also benefits users who don’t have any other PDF viewer installed on their device.

The new storage permissions provides 2 options to access files:

1. Full access (to all files)
2. Media read-only access (to photos and videos)

This is an important feature for enabling secure file sharing on your device and gives you the opportunity to allow less access.

Now with your Android phone, you can also upload documents by scanning them. Under the “Add to Nextcloud” area, select “Scan document from camera” and you will be able to upload items quickly and easily.

Thank you to our amazing community!

A big thanks goes to all the awesome members of our community that regularly help us make Nextcloud better, by translating Nextcloud to other languages or reporting and fixing issues!

Would you like to contribute to our Android app too? Check out all you need to know here.

If you’d like to get more involved in testing, here’s the easiest way to help us!

The post Major improvements for Nextcloud clients: Nextcloud Files 3.5 for desktop and 3.20 for Android appeared first on Nextcloud.

Cloud centered, cloud focused

For some time now, Stadtsparkasse München has been running an on-premises Nextcloud server to exchange confidential data with customers. More recently, in 2020, the bank decided that they wanted to transfer all their internal managed systems to the data centers of competent, regional partners. With a Gold Partnership with Nextcloud, HKN stood out as an ideal partner for running their Nextcloud services.

Nextcloud offers a unique on-premises solution for financial services companies.

HKN delivers Nextcloud on its open cloud

With 25 years of experience in hosting Linux applications, HKN was more than capable to deliver quality results with all Stadtsparkasse’s requirements for a provider. From being a German based data center, to having significant migration experience, their top five requirements were met.

For several months, HKN was there throughout the entire process, ensuring a smooth migration and testing every detail. The end result satisfied employees and administrators.

By switching to HKN’s Open Cloud, Stadtsparkasse München achieved high availability, scalability, DSGVO-compliant hosting, and more.

Nextcloud Enterprise and beyond

Through HKN, Stadtsparkasse München benefits from Nextcloud Enterprise advantages like improved security, stability and of course direct access to our top engineers.

As a highly trusted financial institution, Stadtsparkasse München has always been looking a step ahead to provide the most advanced, modern, and secure solutions that deliver the best service to their valued customers in Munich and beyond. They are a bank committed to their city and with this interest in society they keep an integral focus on new apps and features.

Check out the case study to get a detailed look at how Stadtsparkasse München, HKN, and Nextcloud conquered the challenge, how they implemented it, and the final results.

The post Stadtsparkasse Munich facilitates customer data exchange with Nextcloud by HKN appeared first on Nextcloud.

Nextcloud Hub II brings a wide range of improvements for both private users and enterprises. Check the Nextcloud Hub II announcement here if you want to read that one first.

What’s new?

The Nextcloud desktop, Android and iOS clients coming with this release come with support for Unified Search, User Profiles and User Status on all platforms.

Nextcloud desktop client (for Linux, Windows, macOS)

The Desktop Client now supports End-to-end encryption with the Virtual File System on Windows and introduced a dialog to resolve file name issues. Various user interface improvements including an enhanced activity dialog with file activity and sync status/progress as well as support for directly sharing files to a Talk conversation or email address complement the Desktop Client release.

More:

• Profile page support (Nextcloud 23)
• Bulk upload
• Set user status
• File activity dialog
• Sharing feature improvements
• Unified search
• Main dialog imrovements (progress bar during sync etc)
• Native Apple M1 support

Nextcloud Files for iOS:

The iOS app comes with native media integration and picture-in-picture.

More:

• Automatic delete for old files
• Chunking mode improvements
• PDF Viewer improvements
• New internal video viewer
• Improved zooming for the internal image viewer
• New progress indicator
• Combined Activity View (MESSAGE + ACTIVITY)
• Profile Menu for Nextcloud 23

Nextcloud Files for Android

The Android app also introduces calendar backup/restore and an improved video player for streaming.

More:

• Calendar backup and restore
• Unified search
• Sharing permission improvements
• More fixes and improvements

Thank you to our amazing community!

Big thanks go to all the awesome members of our community that regularly help us make Nextcloud better, by translating Nextcloud to other languages or reporting and fixing issues!

Feedback

We appreciate your feedback! If you’d like to share your comments with us, continue the discussion in our forums. What’s the best thing about the Nextcloud clients so far?

The post Nextcloud Files for desktop, Android and iOS introducing support for Nextcloud Hub II features and more major improvements! appeared first on Nextcloud.