An ms shop wanted to share a folder from their onedrive with me.

I could not access it until I signed up for a Microsoft account and forced to download their authenticator app.

Well, at least you got to access it.

We use OneDrive at work, so I have all the right apps and accounts and whatnots. When I wanted to download a folder with a lot of files in it, it would regularly crap out.

There's no way to download the files as files unless you do it one by one. If you select multiple files, it produces a zip, which sometimes fails to transfer properly.

The Windows app is somewhat better, in that at least you can move the files as files. But even so, it's unreliable. The tray icon says everything is synced, but in the explorer some files still have the "syncing" icon. And of course, when I look on the browser, said files are missing. But there's no network activity, so it just... does nothing.

I have also not found an easy way to confirm all files are synced from the web. I haven't found an equivalent to the right-click -> properties to get the number of files and the actual size. So if you have a structure with several folders, you're SoL.

Was your account banned the next day for "suspicious activity"? That's the full Microsoft experience.

To be entirely fair though, this is a policy set by the organisation and not Microsoft themselves.

> and forced to download their authenticator app

AFAIK, that’s not forced, ‘only’ strongly directed towards. You certainly can use a third party authenticator with Microsoft accounts, and I expect that to work with OneDrive, too.

I mean, I'm not going to defend Onedrive (aside form saying it "mostly works just like the rest") but how is it the app or the vendors fault that someone send you a link that required an account to access? There is an "anonymous access through this link" sharing option that does work as advertised.

This works the same for Google drive and most of the other services. The problem is that most users don't understand that the link they create still has access controls attached (that they can change).

In case it can help, you don't need to install Microsoft authenticator. FreeOTP+, Aegis etc will do just as well.

This is a configuration issue. Onedrive also supports OTPs.

But regardless, what alternative would you propose? Did it contain any sensitive information? Does the alternative integrate with your current system? Do people need to create accounts for it like Dropbox? Do I have to teach all of the employees how do use this new service instead of just right-clicking and sharing the file?

SFTP is a no-go for obvious reasons. I can't even get people to stop clicking birthday initiation links from Australia (we're in the US) let alone teach them how to use FTP.

Dropbox would require a dropbox account. 100% not going to push another piece of softare on them when our current software already does.

To be fair, that’s 50% the shop’s fault. They could have probably provided access via a link like GDrive allows. But of course, some moron on the other end would probably find it incomprehensible why you don’t already have an MS account or why you’re not willing/hesitant to create one, “it’s free!”

Of course, even if they did give an “insecure” link, you’d probably have suffered a terrible experience of failed downloads, partial and corrupted downloads, random snail speeds, etc.

(Sorry, I had to vent)