Transmit FTP client for Mac: The end of Google Drive support is approaching

Popular data transfer manager in existence since 1998 transmit For Mac. In addition to standard protocols like FTP, SFTP or WebDAV, it has also supported many cloud providers over the years, be it OneDrive, Dropbox, Backblaze, AWS or Box. But one popular service may soon cease to exist: Google Drive. This is what developer Panic Software said this week announced on my blog,

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Google requires annual certification

Panic explains, “We don’t like to remove features from our applications. We especially don’t like to do so when it happens due to circumstances beyond our control.” Google will disable Transmit’s access to Google Drive “at an unknown point in the future.” From then on it will not be possible to connect storage. besides transmit code editor nova Powered by Panic, which includes built-in upload and sync functions.

Panic says the reason support is ending is that Google is requiring new certificates from providers who want to provide access to Google Drive with their apps and services. “(These) are expensive, lengthy annual reviews that make it extremely difficult to maintain appropriate access (…).”

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KPMG should take a look

Incidentally, this request from Google is not new: it was already in 2019 Such reviews were initiated for security reasonsPanik says that at the time, it would take until 2020 for access to be restored. Later, the certification started running smoothly every year. From 2023, Transmit lost access again because a “Cloud Application Security Assessment” (CASA) was required.

It got done, but it took a very long time – including vulnerability scanning of the Transmit source code. From March 2024, Transmit is able to use Google Drive again, but this “check” is now required annually. Scanning the codes yourself is also now banned, with expensive service providers (such as KPMG) having to be used instead. Panic says, overall, it’s not worth it. By the way, the company is not the only victim of the Google Drive policy: Creator of iA Writer Freezed their Android app because they no longer wanted to comply with constantly changing security regulations and review requirements. Among other things, Google required that they Read-only on Google Drive Should be accessible – as a writing app.

(B.Sc.)