Internxt Review – The Good and Bad for 2023

If you’re worried that massive tech conglomerates are spying on your data and using your information for world domination, then this software is for you. Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme—but this cloud storage company is built on one defining premise, which is to protect your data and respect your privacy at all costs.

With its unique zero-knowledge AES-256 encryption, Internxt is one of the most secure cloud storage softwares on the market. It puts you back in the driver’s seat of your data so you won’t have to worry about who’s looking at your files, documents, PDFs, images, and whatever else you want to keep safe.

Internxt: The Good and the Bad

Internxt is designed for privacy. Nobody—not even Internxt—ever sees anything you upload until you decide to share it yourself. The company even publishes its code on GitHub for full transparency. That’s impressive to say the least, and it shows that Internxt walks the digital walk.

Still, we’d perhaps be misleading if we treated it like one of the best cloud storage options out there today. The truth is, it’s still a relatively new company that’s experiencing growing pains, so we’d still recommend checking out the free version to see if it looks suitable for your needs. There’s no doubt that we support what it stands for, but we’re still waiting to see how it matures.

What Internxt Is Good At

Privacy at its core: The company’s mission is clearly to be a champion of internet privacy and security for all. This is a noble pursuit against data exploitation, and we have nothing but good things to say about that.

Internxt also embraces an underdog mentality, seeking to provide ethical alternatives while trying to compete against tech giants. It aims to build a fairer internet that is committed to upholding human rights.

Since everything Internxt does centers on safeguarding sensitive user data, it starts out by ensuring full GDPR compliance so that it legally protects customers.

Next, it preaches complete transparency by posting all of its open source code on GitHub, which also invites external audits. This also provides top programmers an opportunity to poke holes and dig up weaknesses in the source code, ultimately allowing Internxt to fortify the security of its offerings over time.

Altogether, Internxt’s commitment to privacy is an honorable stance, and we respect its dedication to the cause.

Plentiful security features: As soon as you start testing Internxt, you’ll notice how quickly its privacy protections stand out. When you upload files, they undergo AES-256 end-to-end encryption upon transfer, both in transit and at rest, which shields data from unauthorized access. This prevents spying, since you’re the only one who can decrypt.

When creating shareable links, you can add password protections for an extra layer of security. Even though it’s Internxt’s platform, it has no access whatsoever to user information like passwords, files, or photos.

This is called zero-knowledge technology, and it means that your data stays invisible to all unauthorized parties—so even your sweet little old grandma’s data is safe. (That is, unless she unwittingly gives away her password, her two-factor authentication code, and her bank login details over the phone to a spam caller. Aww, sorry grandma!)

With military-grade encryption, zero visibility by the provider, and optional passwords on shares, Internxt offers ironclad assurance that your sensitive data remains private. It’s also uncomplicated for the user, which we can confirm after testing it ourselves. You really don’t have to do anything extra to keep your data safe, which is super convenient.

Internxt Drive: Internxt Drive serves as the main private cloud storage compartment of the platform, providing a user-friendly home for files, documents, media, and more. During testing, we found it a pleasure to use, and it can be accessed in a variety of ways, including web, desktop app, and mobile.

Uploading files is also seamless, with end-to-end encryption applying instantly to safeguard data the moment you drag-and-drop a file. The sleek online dashboard makes organizing content intuitive through a clean folder hierarchy that you get to customize how you want.

When it comes time to share encrypted files, all it takes is a quick link generation, plus a password if you want one, and then you can send it. For added security, links expire after 15 days automatically.

With versatile backup and sync, timed link sharing, and a refined interface, Internxt’s Drive provides stellar secure cloud storage with a ton of user control.

Desktop app: It’s not everyday that a new software comes with a desktop app, but Internxt does, and it makes valuable additions to the experience by enabling intuitive multi-device syncing and automated backups.

The app settings offer flexibility, such as custom local folder destinations and scheduled recurring backups. That said, you may want to be careful, because we ran into some minor difficulties with set-scheduled backups during our testing. However, once we got it to function properly, we could see for ourselves how Internxt’s automation handles backups securely and takes the effort out of protecting your data.

Internxt Photos: Internxt Photos is a feature that provides secure encrypted cloud storage tailored to images. Its functionality mirrors Internxt Drive, but it’s just for photos.

Rather than a desktop app, syncing photos requires the mobile app. This could frustrate users who manage most of their photos on computers, but the good news is that the web and mobile apps communicate well to create a unified interface.

As with files and documents, sharing photos simply requires generating a link and adding password protection as desired. You can specify viewing and download limits for each shared image as well.

For those reliant on mobile imagery, Internxt Photos provides encrypted cloud backup and selective sharing with link permissions that keeps precious memories private while accessible.

Free tools: Internxt provides several handy free online tools enhancing privacy and security. You can get a lot of use out of these.

For example, the byte converter lets you calculate and compare data units like gigabytes and terabytes to understand exactly how much storage you’re going to need when it comes to making purchasing decisions.

Another neat feature is the ability to create temporary anonymous emails for random one-off purposes where you want to prevent spam from hitting your main inbox. These on-demand disposable emails are great for keeping your main email address clutter-free.

There’s also a handy password checker, which estimates the cracking difficulty of a potential password and reports on the likelihood that any password you use has been compromised. This teaches good password hygiene—and it reminds us to go clean up and change all of our old crazyegg123 passwords floating around. (Just kidding, you animals.)

Speaking of unpredictable passwords, Internxt also has a strong password generator that you can use to clean up your own messes.

Overall, these complementary tools are nice additions to Internxt’s core encrypted services. By offering free utilities, Internxt helps users increase privacy, identify vulnerabilities, and boost their security awareness.

Internxt’s Potential Drawbacks

Missing features: While testing Internxt, we noticed some significant limitations worth considering. First and foremost, there is no file versioning, which means that once you overwrite a document that’s synced to the desktop app, you cannot revert it to a previous version. This could potentially cause you to lose work irrevocably.

Additionally, the preview feature can also be inconsistent across document types like docx, pages, and video formats like mkv. In our testing, the previews remained stubbornly broken.

Another downside to Internxt is that it does not integrate with any third-party apps or services. There are no plugins or integrations beyond its closed ecosystem, which on its own may frustrate users of specific tools.

While Internxt excels at security, missing these key features can give prospective customers a few reasons to hesitate.

Very basic workflow capacities: Internxt lacks key features for collaborative work and convenient sharing. There are no collaboration capabilities or file syncing through the web interface.

There’s also no way of adding teammates to a file at all—not even by email invitation. The only sharing method forces you to create a link manually and send it. There is no direct sharing of original files for in-app collaboration. Of course, this may be a helpful security feature to some, but it makes the platform less usable for teams.

For individuals with simple backup needs, it may suffice. But the lack of collaborative capabilities suggests that there’s still a lot of room for the product to mature, because many users will want that option even if it’s not the main use case.

Buggy UX: During our evaluation, we encountered a few bugs that hampered our impression of Internxt’s overall readiness.

Firstly, uploads on the web app felt slow, especially for large files. We all know that transfers that drag on and on can send users looking for other options, so this wasn’t great.

Something else we ran into was a modal that popped up on every login prompting us to “upload files” despite how we were already adding content. This repetitive extra click grew annoying over time.

Other settings weren’t sticky enough for our liking either, as the desktop backup settings stubbornly defaulted to daily uploads every time, even after we tried to set a custom frequency. We couldn’t change it no matter how hard we tried.

In the end, while these may be minor nuisances, you might feel like they add up—especially for a privacy-centric service where reliability is paramount.

Customer service may not be up to snuff: Although Internxt suggests that it has 24/7 availability in customer service, our experience didn’t reflect that. Contacting the team proved unreliable.

The website advertises live chat, but it only redirects to FAQs—and there’s no existing chat option that we could find. This can be frustrating for users looking for answers and encountering more problems.

Emailing support yielded an auto-reply that said we’d get a response within a few hows, but in our case it took days to get a human response. This was also on a weekday, so keep that in mind, too. For a paid service, this could make users feel helpless.

Reliable support is a pillar for any cloud provider, especially one entrusted with sensitive data. Unfortunately, Internxt appears to overpromise and then underdeliver (at least in our case). If the gap between claims of 24/7 support and inconsistent experiences remains constant, it could erode user confidence.

Internxt Send appears to be AWOL: Internxt advertises a file-sending feature called Internxt Send, but we could not access it during testing. In fact, we couldn’t even find it.

The site explains that the Send feature allows for drag-and-drop file transfers via sharable link or direct email. Since Internxt already enables link sharing, this sounds super useful if implemented, so we were eager to check it out.

Internxt states that Send is free for all and doesn’t require an Internxt account, which is exactly what we tried to do and failed. Perhaps it’s available for high-end subscribers, but we can’t confirm that. For now, Send seems relegated to the roadmap.

Internxt Plans and Pricing

Pricing may be Internxt’s strongest feature aside from its focus on privacy. Even if it isn’t the best cloud storage platform out there, it currently offers a free forever plan with up to 10GB of storage—and the paid lifetime plan can also be picked up right now for half price. Furthermore, there’s even a 30-day money back guarantee, so if you aren’t satisfied you can always get your full refund.

Individual Subscription

Internxt offers four tiered plans for individuals seeking encrypted cloud storage. Each plan adds more storage space for a commensurate price bump.

The aforementioned free-forever plan comes with 10GB of storage and covers core needs for light users who wish to protect a lot of small files or a few large ones. As with all plans, the permanent free plan enables secure sharing and multi-device access.

For $11.99 billed annually or $1.49 billed month-to-month, you can upgrade to the 20GB plan. This option is a good starting point for individual use cases like family photos, personal file hosting, or important document storage.

The 200GB plan costs $45.49 per year or $4.99 monthly. This one comes with ample space for ordinary media libraries and project archives. It’s also Internxt’s most popular option.

Finally, 2TB of storage is available for power users at $116.49 per year or $10.99 billed monthly. This jumbo capacity plan handles large collections of videos, photos, and other data.

With competitive pricing and increasing storage at reasonable steps, Internxt accommodates all kinds of personal and professional storage needs.

Individual Lifetime Plan

For a one-time payment, Internxt offers lifetime encrypted cloud storage plans made even more affordable by a limited-time 50% discount.

The 2TB lifetime plan generally costs $322.99, but that drops to $161 at 50% off. This provides ample secure space for most light to moderate needs.

Upgrading to the popular 5TB option guarantees immense storage capacity for $538.99. With the half-price discount, it’s only $269.

Finally, 10TB serves professional media creators and enterprises for $1,078.99, and that drops to $539 during the promotion.

With military-grade encryption applied, these lifetime plans let you securely store a lifetime’s worth of memories and work without ever having to think about monthly payments again. We’re also not sure how long the 50% off promotion will last, so who knows how fast you’d need to act to lock that down.

Business Plans

During our evaluation, Internxt was in the middle of developing new storage plans tailored specifically for business needs. These forthcoming options aim to better secure company data.

Details remain scarce, but we anticipate the business plans will offer expanded storage allotments to accommodate growth, but we still remain skeptical about collaborative functionalities arriving in the near future.

In any case, the very intention of designing plans for business seems to bode well. Companies have unique requirements, and Internxt is working to address them soon.

Final Thoughts

Internxt has a lot of good to offer as far as true privacy goes—its zero-knowledge, full-spectrum, end-to-end encryption security is excellent and a standout feature in the cloud storage space. At the same time, the platform seems to be a work in progress, and might have a long way to go before it becomes your all-in-one secure cloud-storage vault.

We’d recommend getting familiar with the platform and uploading a few non-essential files to see how you feel using the software. As time goes on, you may come to like it enough to dive into a paid plan. If not, there’s always the free forever plan that you’ll have at your disposal for one-off needs.

At the end of the day, Internxt has the potential to challenge the big tech giants on privacy grounds. Its mission is admirable, and if it grows up to be something great, you’ll be glad you got in with an early lifetime plan.