Users of the encryption software Boxcryptor are confronted with radical changes. The technology behind Boxcryptor is being taken over by Dropbox and those who are currently using the service without payment must quickly look for an alternative. The previously offered free Boxcryptor version will expire in January without replacement.

The company informed affected users by email that they must decrypt their data before January 31 and place it somewhere else so as not to lose access to it. In the meantime, several users have contacted us who have only seen this mail by chance because it was screened by their spam filters.

For users of the paid Boxcryptor variants, the further process is different and depends on the term of their current Contract. Operators say they sold key technology to Dropbox but want to continue serving existing customers under their existing contracts. The bottom line is that one can probably read it as meaning that the contractual obligations must be settled before the end of the contract. Customers will be informed about this by e-mail.

With Dropbox, a leading American provider in the cloud storage segment is taking over important parts of Boxcryptor. The German Secomba GmbH behind Boxcryptor emphasizes in this context that all customer contracts, keys and data remain in their hands. All customer data must also remain in the company’s German data centers and they don’t want to transfer it or even parts of it to Dropbox’s data centers at any time.

Cryptomator as an alternative

As an alternative to Boxcryptor’s free offering, users of the service should consider the open source solution Cryptomator. Here too, the files stored at cloud providers can be encrypted in advance on your own computer, so that you retain control over access to this data.