Since today is the yearly Safer Internet Day, you can get a free, permanent additional 2 gigabytes (GB) of storage on Google Drive today just by checking the security settings for any Google account you may have, e.g., a Gmail account. If you are signed into your Google account in your browser, when you go to www.google.com, you should see "It's #SaferInternetDay. Stay safe online with a 2-minute
Security Checkup". If you click on the
"Security Checkup" link you will be prompted to verify your security settings.
If you are not signed in, you will see
"It’s #SaferInternetDay.
Explore tips to help
you stay safe online", instead. You can also start the process by going to
Security Checkup and signing in to your Google account from that page.
If you missed the storage upgrade opportunity on February 9, Valentina Palladino notes in Today you can get 2GB of Google Drive storage for free that "There's no word on when this 2GB offer will expire, but you have at least one week to complete the security check-up."
It should only take about a minute to complete the process. At the first step of the process you will be prompted to "Check your recovery information" for your account.
Help us get in touch with you if there’s unusual activity in your account or you accidentally get locked out. Don’t worry, we’ll only use this info if we need to reach you about your account.
You will be asked to verify that your recovery phone number, recovery email address, and security question are correct. At the next step you will be asked to "Check your connected devices"
Next, please review the devices connected to your Google Account. Let us know if any of these devices look unfamiliar to you, and we'll work together to ensure no one else has access to your account.
You will be shown a list of devices identified as "Windows", "Linux", etc. depending on what devices you use to access your account, and a city where that device was used to log into your Google account. If they look ok to you, you can click on "Looks good" and proceed to the next step, which is "Check your account permissions". E.g., if you use Google Drive, you may see it listed with "Has some account access, including Google Drive, Google Hangouts". You will see other services listed to which you've given permission to access some information associated with your Google account. You will see the date authorization was granted to a service and you have the opportunity to remove access to Google account information by that service. If they all look ok, you can click on "Done" to complete the process. If you click on "Continue to account settings", if you click on "Your Google Drive storage" under "Account preferences" on the left side of the browser window, you should see that you've been granted another 2 GB of storage on Google Drive.
The files that you store in Google Drive are always encrypted in transit between your systems and Google's servers and also while stored in Google’s data centers. By confirming the settings for your account, also, you help to ensure the security and privacy of the data that you store using Google's services.
References:
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Today you can get 2GB of Google Drive storage for free
Yet another annual promotion from Google, marking Safer Internet Day 2016.
By Valentina Palladino
Date: February 9, 2016 -
Google Is Awarding 2GB Of Free Drive Space To Promote Safer Internet Day
By: Amit Chowdhry
Date: February 9, 2016
Forbes
