Goodbye, Picasa!

[joby_toss]

https://googlephotos.blogspot.com/

Moving on from Picasa
Friday, February 12, 2016 10:00 AM

Since the launch of Google Photos, we’ve had a lot of questions around what this means for the future of Picasa. After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos.

Picasa Web Albums
If you have photos or videos in a Picasa Web Album today, the easiest way to still access, modify and share most of that content is to log in to Google Photos, and all your photos and videos will already be there. Using Google Photos, you can continue to upload and organize your memories, as well as enjoy other great benefits like better ways to search and share your images.

However, for those of you who don’t want to use Google Photos or who still want to be able to view specific content, such as tags, captions or comments, we will be creating a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data. That way, you will still be able to view, download, or delete your Picasa Web Albums, you just won’t be able to create, organize or edit albums (you would now do this in Google Photos).

One thing to make clear is that none of this is happening today—if you have a Picasa Web Album you can keep using it as normal. We’ll start rolling out these changes on May 1, 2016.

Desktop application
As of March 15, 2016, we will no longer be supporting the Picasa desktop application. For those who have already downloaded this—or choose to do so before this date—it will continue to work as it does today, but we will not be developing it further, and there will be no future updates. If you choose to switch to Google Photos, you can continue to upload photos and videos using the desktop uploader at photos.google.com/apps.

[tactictoe]

Another sad news. I like the idea to have my photos OFF LINE and not published anywhere even it's private and secure and the rest they are telling you. My paranoia about private file hosted on server that you do not own are easy to understand:
- Whatever they are telling you, they can look at your file, or do whatever they like with. The last example of windows 10 gathering information is clearly suspicious. What if a day with no agreeable reason Google or other Host server decide to go that way changing their policies?
- Security breach in file host server, hackers? They are a force to reckon with, aren't they? These day they can unite and attack in group easily to gain access to any on line file they like. Scary but part of the risk when having file hosted somewhere on a distant server.
- If the Host Server of your file crash or a massive collapse of the net occurs in a zone or global... when will you be able to get your file on line?
Pff. I guess I can understand google but here again it sounds more like a forced move to something you might not like, deja-vu?, I just wished for Picassa users that even unsupported they left the on line code intact so Picassa could still be fully functional. Thanks for sharing this info btw.

[SYSTEM]

Pff. I guess I can understand google but here again it sounds more like a forced move to something you might not like, deja-vu?, I just wished for Picassa users that even unsupported they left the on line code intact so Picassa could still be fully functional.

Unfortunately websites have upkeep costs. Keeping Picasa up wouldn't be just a matter of "not doing anything".

[tactictoe]

Pff. I guess I can understand google but here again it sounds more like a forced move to something you might not like, deja-vu?, I just wished for Picassa users that even unsupported they left the on line code intact so Picassa could still be fully functional.

Unfortunately websites have upkeep costs. Keeping Picasa up wouldn't be just a matter of "not doing anything".

I would say yes I agree if it was not concerning a Giant of the Net. Google is worth $527 billion and growing, second after Apple in term of most valuable company. How much cost doing no change for Picassa? Anyway I understand your point and their point as product arriving to end of life and migration to Google Photos and upkeep cost. As I said: I just wish... and this one will not come true.

[webfork]

I was a little surprised at how few Google applications are listed on Softpedia. I think we should continue to expect Google to continue move toward web-based applications and away from native operating system applications (everything under the umbrella of Chrome). It's a shame too because -- at least from my perspective -- Google Desktop Search forever changed the way people used their computer.